MUSIC: Writer’s new Mersey sound - with a Viennese accent

Mar 11 2008 by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

A NEW Liverpool musical has a rather unusual musical source for its inspiration, no less than Franz Schubert.

Schubert may have died in 1828, but for Liverpool songwriter Geoff Lavelle he was just the man for a show about Liverpool clubland.

“I have based all my songs for the new musical on Schubert’s work,” he says. “I have taken them from his songs, piano pieces, trios and chamber music.”

He has, however, given them a right going-over, changing much about them, adding new rhythms and with lyrics from co-writer John Dixon that might have Schubert revolving in his Viennese grave.

The 24 songs have titles like Gorra Gerrit Right, The Liver Bird Jive, The Liverpool Lous and Back in the City of Liverpool.

The show A Liver Bird Sang! will have its premiere on April 1 at The Picket, in Jordan Street, where it is being given a five -night run.

Lavelle has spent three years putting the show together as his contribution to the city’s year as European Capital of Culture.

While happy to write the music and devise a plot about a down-at-heel Liverpool club being given a makeover by new owners, he admits that script writing was not his forte.

So he nipped along to a writers’ group known as The Inklings, at Liverpool Central Library, where he met poet John Dixon, a retired professor from Liverpool University.

Although born in Hertfordshire, Dixon had lived in Liverpool for the last 25 years and was happy to tackle the task of both librettist and lyricist for the musical.

Dixon, in his 60s, and Lavelle, 51 yesterday, did a trawl of city clubs. “It was research,” says Lavelle.

“In the story a woman born in Liverpool but who has been living in the USA, returns and is appalled by the level of service,” explains Lavelle. “She soon takes over a club – known to locals as ‘The Scouse ’ouse’ – and sets out to make improvements.”

* A LIVER Bird Sang! opens on April 1 at The Picket, 7.30pm and runs until April 5. Tickets £10, 0871 424 4444.