Liverpool director Terence Davies’s acclaimed new movie has its world premiere tonight at the Philharmonic Hall. Ben Schofield found him suffering opening night jitters

TERENCE DAVIES underwent his “classical education” at the Philharmonic Hall.

While earning just £5 a week as a trainee accountant he went, alone, to watch and listen to the orchestra. They played, he says, the “vox pops” of the classics – Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto, Beethoven’s Fifth and Tchaikovsky’s Sixth symphonies.

“I went to every concert I could afford,” he adds.

But tonight, Kensington-born Davies will make only his second trip to the hall since leaving Liverpool in 1973, when the building will host the world premiere of his new film Of Time and the City.

“I love the hall, I’ve always loved the hall. It’s got an intimacy and cosiness.”

Narrated by Davies, the film uses archive footage of a bygone Liverpool and charters the director’s shifting relationship with the city. It is one of three Capital of Culture films commissioned by Digital Departures, a Northwest Vision and Media project that aims to make the region leaders in the micro-budget feature film industry.

One of the world’s most revered film-makers, Davies has used his home city as inspiration for a string of movies. His acclaimed maudlin trilogy – Children, Madonna and Child, and Death and Transfiguration – were all set here.

Of Time and the City raised the roof at Cannes, where it had its first preview. Critics, united in praise, have described it as a farewell, a eulogy, and a poem.

But Davies confirms it will be the last about Liverpool

He told the Daily Post: “It’s an emotional farewell. I don’t think I’ll make anything more set in Liverpool.”

The city, he says, has changed too much.

“I’m not the same person I was and that appreciation of where we grew up, in an odd way changes.