brick up the mersey tunnels

WHEN I first moved to Liverpool the Mersey tunnels freaked me out a bit.

In fact, it took me about a year before I would drive the two-mile route beneath the Mersey, convinced as I was that great cracks would appear in the ceiling, or I would lose control of my car and bounce off the tunnel walls in a Wacky Races-style pile up.
Of course, that’s not the reason why other people have an ‘issue’ with the Mersey crossings.
Instead, the tunnels are seen as the ultimate battle ground in the rivalry between Liverpool and the Wirral peninsula.
That rivalry is played out in all its glossy slapstick in Brick Up the Mersey Tunnels which is currently playing at the Royal Court.
I attended last night’s press launch which saw the Scouserati out in force and waiting for their ribs to be tickled.
The downstairs bar at the Royal Court was heaving with ‘faces’ including Colin McKeown, Mike McCartney, John McArdle. All the macs.
In fact, many of those who were at last night’s performance get gentle, and not so gentle, fun poked at them by scriptwriter Bob Eaton.
What Herbert the hairdresser thought of his mention I don’t know, but it brought recognition titters from the up-for-it audience, as did the Pete Price and Rex Makin references.
In fact the only namecheck not met with affable guffaws was that of drugs boss Curtis Warren. Whether that was because few people knew the name, or whether because Warren is no laughing matter, is debatable.
Brick Up the Mersey Tunnels is a Carry On-style celebration of all things Scouse and as such will be lapped up in Liverpool but probably nowhere else, least of all Wirral which is mercilessly pilloried as a world of Hyacinth Buckets (well, after all Patricia Routledge IS a Wirralian herself) snottily slagging off Scousers while happily taking the ‘pool pound.
Some of it is clever, some is wincingly stereotypical and two-dimensionable, but all of it is performed with verve by a classy line-up of Liverpool’s finest actors.