(Soundtrack at this very moment: The Associates' 'Those First Impressions' from '84. A slice of absolute pop genius from the incomparable Billy Mackenzie, a song of joy and beauty, a wallow in the gloss of the sound of the strings and the brass. It sounds how I currently feel. Realistically, I should be listening to something by The Liverbirds as it's The Liverbirds I'll be talking about.)
I'll be listening to The Liverbirds all day today. I've been listening to The Liverbirds all day for many days now, many days over the last two years.
This is what I haven't been talking about. It's what I've hinted at, teased moments of. It's what's been in the background.
It's been the answer to the question, "What are you working on at the moment?'
For a long time.
27th January 2016, my mate Paul writes an article, which you can find here:
http://www.getintothis.co.uk/2016/01/lost-liverpool-5-girls-guitars-liverbirds-britains-first-female-rock-band/
He'd found this photo of four girls on the ferry, with their name listed: The Liverbirds.
And I do mean 'this one'. This specific photo. In the manner that everything is interconnected, he'd actually found this photo on a Facebook group run by my mate Lisa's brother. Paul saw Lisa perform in Those Two Weeks, had no idea that this connection existed. None of us did until last week.
So Paul asked himself a question:
"Why don't I know anything about these girls?"
And went about finding out. Finding out properly.
There are pieces on the girls on the internet. They give you details of their career in Germany, details of their record releases. They obviously don't give you any way of getting in touch with the girls themselves.
But they did mention that the band's bassist, Mary McGlory had married a music publisher, Frank Dostal, who had been the lead singer of The Rattles, playing the Star Club at the same time as The Liverbirds.
So Paul tracked down German music publishing companies until he located one that was run by a Frank Dostal. The Frank Dostal, obviously.
That brought about an introduction to Mary which gave Paul chance to get the story direct from her for the article. Something that most of the pieces on the internet had absolutely no access to.
It went up on the GIT website, was shared on Facebook, and people reacted. Someone said it should be a film, I answered with "I'll write the script!"
And then went back to whatever I was doing at the time.
Cut to: a year later. Paul also promotes gigs round town and he was promoting a gig by Aviator (Pete Wilkinson ex of Cast and Shack and The Bunnymen) at the Scandinavian Church. I was there. Me and Paul had a gab on the way in, he said "I've got an idea I need to talk to you about" and then grabbed me at the end to talk about it.
He'd bumped into a well know local actor, Drew Schofield (does a lot of theatre, was Scully on the TV in the eighties, quite brilliantly) and he'd been talking about the article and saying he fancied turning it into a book. Drew looked at it and went, "that's a play that."
Paul's reply? I don't write plays but I know a bloke who does.
And he asked me if I fancied writing the play.
He hadn't read any of my work at that point, hadn't seen any of the plays but trusted that I knew what I was doing. That's faith, that
You don't say no to anything that sounds this interesting.
So there was a pitch document. I knew the form that I wanted to tell the story in and I had the beats. Then there was a first draft. And we sent it to Mary.
A meeting with Mary and Sylvia followed. A meal in town. I ate with my left hand, wrote with my right and changed absolutely everything for the second draft. We had the story straight from the girls. Most importantly we had their blessing to go forward. The most important thing here was making sure that we were telling the right story. The most important thing to me in the writing was making sure that I was being faithful to the story of the girls, faithful to who they were, who Mary and Sylvia are, what they achieved: because they achieved a hell of a lot.
It's an incredible story and ridiculous that not enough people know about it.
More drafts followed, the possibility of moving forward as a private venture, seeking funding, doing it ourselves. You don't need the full details.
There were meetings with theatres. More drafts. Some excellent dramaturgy from Emma Bird.
And at the beginning of this year, the week that I was leaving work for the final time, the conversations became very real.
So yesterday we announced the show. The four girls playing the four girls are cast. They're going to be incredible. They kind of have to be, because the girls were, and are.
One of the best things about this whole process has been the amount of time we've been able to spend with Mary and Sylvia. They did more before they turned twenty-two than most of us manage in our entire lives and it's a pleasure and a privilege to be able to tell their story.
So that's how this all started. Now I'm going to head back into script revisions and start listening to The Liverbirds again.
Because they're really bloody excellent.
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