one night in istanbul with rafa, carragher and gerrard

By Catherine Jones on Jul 10, 09 09:44 AM

There was an atmosphere, as I've said in my review today, somewhere between Anfield and a performance of Brick Up The Mersey Tunnels at the Empire last night.
And it was particularly charged because some of the heroes of Liverpool's 2005 win in Istanbul - Stevie Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Rafa Benitez - were in the audience for the opening night of One Night in Istanbul.

Before anyone with tickets for the rest of the run gets too excited, don't expect them in the theatre every night, although I understand there may be a special guest as part of the show each evening.
Actually, for those of us not used to such a pressurised atmosphere, it was quite intimidating!
Not in a deliberate way (everyone in there was lovely and just out to have a great night) but I was sitting two rows in front of Rafa and Stevie G was a couple of rows behind him, and we were swamped by people wanting to take photos, get autographs and talk to their footballing heroes.
It was slightly bizarre that before the start of the play about half the audience weren't facing the stage at all, they were standing with their back to it to get a glimpse of the players.
Anyway, Nicky Allt told me a while ago that his aspiration was to create a play that would bring people into the theatre who might not normally go, and in that he was very successful.
Everyone appeared to love it, and I certainly hope they had such a good time they may come back and try something else too - something with fewer goals and less scallies in it next time.
I thought the play was a real crowdpleaser, and there were some lovely moments - John McArdle's sleep walking, the Sammy Lee holdall joke, the good use of two screens on either side of what was quite a small, static set on such a large stage, and the balladeer who kept returning with his rendition of a Horse WIth No Name.
And the vision of Jamie Carragher and Stevie Gerrard dancing and punching the air and taking a bow with the cast on stage at the end will stay with me for a long time!
But, and there is a but, I do get a bit despondent about the reliance on topics like the Grafton, the Lisbon, Widnes etc to get laughs, and I would have loved one of the "interviewees" on the cod-Sky TV broadcast to come out with an eloquent analysis of the Reds' march to the final just to defy the Scouse stereotypes on show.
I don't want to appear churlish because it was a rousing night's entertainment and the crowd absolutely loved it. More power to Nicky Allt's elbow. But sometimes, just sometimes, I want more!!