THEATRE REVIEW: Liverpool fans purr and roar at Shankly tribute - a football masterclass

Apr 25 2008 by Mike Chapple, Liverpool Daily Post

Sandy West as Bill Shankly _320

IN these days of aloof £100,000-a-week-plus players many of whom look on the fans with a disdain now being reciprocated, there's a need to remember a football icon who personified the expression Man Of The People.

Bill Shankly was he.
 
The legendary's Reds' manager's quote about football being more important than a matter of life and death - a classic piece of Shankly philosophy expressed with his tongue so far in his cheek he could have been mistaken for nursing a gumboil - is the one lazily recited by the TV pundits.

But there was a far more serious side to the man and his view of life epitomised in a quote less used but more essential in trying to understand the bond that still holds firm between Liverpool fans and someone who died nearly 27 years ago.
 
And it's this: "The socialism I believe in is everybody working for the same goal and everybody having a share in the rewards. That's how I see football, that's how I see life."
 
One suspects that Andrew Sherlock, writer/director of the Culture Company promoted The Shankly Show, will have had those words in mind when he created this hallelujah chorus which had the sell-out audience alternately purring and roaring in their seats.
 
It could have been one of those Chelsea own goal nights, though, after the actor initially chosen to play the great man pulled out with eight days to go for this gala premiere with what some may say was the thespian equivalent of a simulated Drogba dive in the penalty area.
 
But the last minute substitution with Scottish actor Alexander "Sandy" West turned it into something of a night in Istanbul when victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat.
 
It was a winning striker's performance, bolstered with some great archive footage and a lean script packed with wit, grit and poignancy.
 
A worthy tribute in times of need.