DISCO musical Mam I’m ‘Ere returns to the Liverpool stage this week with a lot to celebrate.
Cancelled twice during the theatre closures of the pandemic, this week’s opening at the Royal Court will be the fourth revival of the show. And it is also, as it happens, marking a milestone of ten years since its premiere.
Creator, director and former star Stephen Fletcher had the idea for Mam I’m ‘Ere after he, along with some other familiar faces from the Liverpool stage, somewhat unexpectedly found themselves with no work over the Christmas period of 2012. Dependent on a regular festive gig, the only option was to take a chance and create their own opportunity.
Like many a Scouse play, a pun-tastic title proved the inspiration; needless to say a riff on the ABBA musical and movie Mama Mia. It took the tale of a search for a real dad into a search for a mum, threw in a range of irresistible disco classics, and things fell into place.
And you may wonder how a budget production from a band of regional jobbing actors got away with it - but everything came with the highest seal of approval. Stephen had worked with director Phyllida Lloyd - by happy coincidence, the woman at the helm of Mama Mia in the West End and later on screen - at London’s Donmar Warehouse, in a production of Schiller’s Mary Stewart back in 2005.
He says: “We kept in touch, and so I asked if there’d be any issue with doing a spoof, and she wrote back to say it was absolutely fine.
“I just thought there was a good play on words, no real science to it - even famous writers will say these things can be a fluke. So it became a mash up of the original show turned on its head.”
And the original Mam really was a DIY job from start to finish. Original venue the Dome at Grand Central Hall on Renshaw Street (recently closed) was a new venture at that time, and soon found to be lacking in everything from heating in the dead of winter, to actual seats, parts of a roof, and anything resembling a box office system - leaving Stephen’s fledgling company, Life in Theatre Productions, to find the solutions so that the show could go on (it was even reviewed on this site!). “I lost four stone from the stress,” he admits. But it got the ball rolling and its potential as a crowd pleaser saw the Royal Court - a venue that originally passed Mam up - go on to stage bigger and better productions in 2016 and 2018.
“It feels the show has grown up since then,” Stephen says. “Really the initial intention was putting a play on, that people wanted to watch, so we had a job.
“I’m excited that what we have now is the most definitive version of the show.”
It’s a thrill for Stephen to be showcasing his own original work at the Royal Court, where he has been a familiar face on stage, and latterly as a director, for well over a decade.
“It’s where in learned my trade,” he says. “How to tell a joke, to improvise, how to hold an audience… because there, if there’s a gap someone will leap in with something funny, that you kick yourself you didn’t think of.”
The audience there, as every performer learns, is a law unto itself. “They want to watch what they want to watch, so it’s my job as a creative to give them the best version of that. It’s Mam I’m ‘Ere, not Hamlet - we get people up and dancing, but there’s still a warmth and a message at the heart of it.”
(And if you want to catch the show at it’s most infectious, Stephen recommends a Saturday matinee for an audience that is the most up for a boogie to kick-start the weekend.)
From the start, the production showed the power of a decent, experienced rep company, which was essentially what the cast was, having so much shared experience on Liverpool stages over the years. Some like Andrew Schofield have been there since the start, and the likes of Eithne Brown, Keddy Sutton and others have been there for some of the productions. Stephen’s brother Michael Fletcher took over his role along the way.
And there’s a few new faces in the cast this time, including Kacey Ainsworth, best known for her role as Little Mo in EastEnders. She’s been no stranger to Liverpool since appearing as Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd at the Everyman in 2019, and the cheerier prospect of a disco musical seemed like something worth trying on for size.
So there’s no doubt the next few weeks should be good fun for cast and audience alike.
“Especially after the pandemic, people want a laugh,” Stephen says.
“And getting back into the rehearsal room has been like putting on an old pair of shoes.”
He’s proud to see his little show grow to see its tenth birthday, and there’s still more to come, with hopes it could tour other regions in future.
“I feel I’ve been breathing in with anxiety for the last two years - a sort of disbelief that someone isn’t going to tell me it’s not happening,” he says. Directing the Royal Court’s last two Christmas shows among other work in the touch-and-go days of the pandemic meant never really knowing if theatres would be forced to close mid-run, or learning to adapt the production to accommodate isolating cast members, among many other challenges that thankfully seem to be behind us (I wrote about the pandemic impact on Stephen’s panto in The Post).
“But this feels like a bit of a nice homecoming, a celebration,” he smiles. “I’m very excited.”
Mam I’m Ere runs from Friday June 10 until 9th July 9 at the Royal Court. The show is completely family friendly so all ages are welcome, with tickets available online at www.liverpoolsroyalcourt.com or on 0151 709 4321
