The UK tour of Helen Forrester’s By The Waters Of Liverpool, halted by the Coronavirus last year just three dates into a 17-date run, has seen what was to have been its 2021 tour until November postponed until 2023.
The stage adaptation of the million-selling autobiographical novel – 2023 cast to be announced – opened on March 3, 2020 in Forrester’s birthplace, New Brighton, then played Stockport and Warrington before anti-Coronavirus measures forced a halt.
The tour was to have visited Lancaster, Crewe, Southport, Rhyl, Swansea, Darlington, Malvern, Eastbourne, the Isle Of Man, Hayes, Winchester, Liverpool and Blackpool.
The period drama, presented by Liverpool producer Pulse Records in association with city producer Bill Elms, was to have reopened at Liverpool’s Epstein Theatre on March 2 this year, followed by 18 dates from Lancaster to Winchester.
As it happened, the reopening of the Epstein theatre had not been arranged at that time, but Covid measures also continued to make theatre production impossible. The tour was moved to September-November in expectations of a reduction in the strict regulations by then.
But the producers were forced to postpone once again: "We deeply regret having to make this decision but, like so many other theatrical producers, our position has now been made untenable," said a spokesman.
One piece of better news for fans of the popular show is that the planned 2022 tour of Forrester's work Twopence to Cross the Mersey – which precedes Waters in the Forrester canon – will go ahead as intended, with a possibility that the closed Epstein theatre in the centre of her native city could now be one of the tour venues.
More information here