A Christmas snowstorm hit the Liverpool Royal Court with the opening night of ‘Scouse of the Antarctic’.
The slapstick comedy sees American and Russian submarine captains John McGrellis and Lindzi Germain fight for the ownership of the North Pole to reap the benefits of its massive oil and gas reserves.
They get there only to find a Scouser, played by Brookside’s Mickey Starke, has already set up camp in a Hawaiian shirt with a know-it-all student (Hayley Hampson) in tow.
The play, written by Fred Lawless, includes talking polar bears Kylie (Helen Carter) and Jason (Michael Ledwich), dancing penguins and a rude, bitter Evertonian snowman who start off the show with high energy which continues throughout.
With the support of a four-piece band hidden beneath the snowy structure, the dramatic fight amongst the generous set of an igloo, icy terrain and submarines plays out with romance, fights and a lot of Liverpudlian humour and history weaved into the script.
Highlights of the show included Starke’s impressions of Cilla Black and The Beatles, as well as the married polar bears performing Torvill and Dean’s Bolero to the crowd’s delight.
This year’s annual show features a mixture of Royal Court regulars and new faces. Musical director Howard Gray includes original songs, one of which – a sickly-sweet love duet between Hampson’s student Daisy and Michael Fletcher’s Ruskie Boris, which was written by Lawless and his son.
Some aspects of the play seemed off the cuff with unplanned jokes and the Scouse accent coming through which only added to the random and unexpected turn of events.
Overall the show is upbeat with a big focus on sexual innuendos but, with the participation of the audience and the Liverpudlian humour in the script, it’s a fun watch just to see the cast have so much fun themselves.
Scouse of the Antarctic runs until January 17th and has an age advisory of 15+ due to the sexual references and the occasional use of strong language.