The alternative to Helen Forrester’s books

ROB FENNAH PLAYWRIGHT/PRODUCER/SONGWRITER

THE ALTERNATIVE TO HELEN FORRESTER’S BOOKS

They say you make your own luck in this life, which was very much the case for Rob Fennah. Aged just 15, he joined the band Buster, and by 18, he had received his first gold record for songwriting. He went on to form Alternative Radio with his brother Alan, which was the stepping stone for his success in the theatre.

A rather long wait for a radio interview to promote their new album proved to be the catalyst for a new song when the secretary offered him ‘Twopence to Cross the Mersey’ by Helen Forrester to pass away the time. He took the book to be polite but became engrossed, reading the sequel ‘Liverpool Miss’ too. He came across a line describing her dad as a ‘butterfly, whose wings had become useless in the rain’. Butterfly in the Rain became his next song.

Whilst enjoying a drink with an old friend Arthur Johnson, the marketing editor for the Liverpool Echo, in the early nineties, Johnson mentioned he had been charged with finding entertainment for a literary lunch for an author. That author was Helen Forrester.

Johnson was already aware of ‘Butterfly in the Rain’, and as soon as he knew the book inspired the title, he asked them to play at the event.

Helen adored the song and asked permission to use the track whilst promoting her book around the world, they agreed and started talking about theatre.

Rob and Alan had previous experience in theatre, penning the music for ‘First Night’, written by Mark Thomas, a highly acclaimed musical premiering at the Glenda Jackson Theatre. He asked Helen if she had ever thought of ‘Twopence to Cross the Mersey’ becoming a stage show. She told him there was an adaptation done for schools that she hated, so she was dubious about it as she told him, “Nobody ever gets it right”!

The conversation continued, and sensing his love for her writing, she offered him a two-year option to develop a script and if, and only if she liked it, she would go ahead. Excited to start, Rob tried to get a professional script writer involved, however, due to lack of funds, nobody was interested. He did think of giving up but decided to have a go himself.

Although Rob hadn’t written a script for theatre before, he did write for television companies, including Granada, Men and Motors and the Manchester United channel. He wanted to do justice to Helen’s books so he knew he had to incorporate both ‘Twopence’ and ‘Liverpool Miss’, the sequel to get the full story. He began reading the books over and over.

He communicated with Helen continuously by phone and letter. She was an integral part of the script writing, not physically, but by expanding on certain characters, it gave Rob the background information required. He tells us that “you can’t just copy the words from the book and put it on stage it just doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t translate. With a play, you have two hours maximum. You must find the main thread of the story, the main part of the tale you want to tell, so that the book writer doesn’t feel like any bits are missing.

That’s quite tricky as you need to keep it entertaining, with light moments as well as darker moments because it’s quite a heavy read. Fortunately, Helen allowed me to expand on characters that don’t feature too heavily in the book and together we tried to bring them to life. We had a countermeasure to the serious stuff, with a clash of culture and with that, you do get a lot of fun”

Rob was concerned about writing the script. ‘Twopence’, being a great book, was both a help and a hindrance. He would be open to major criticism if he didn’t interpret it properly. The audience expects to see the books come to life in the way that they visualise the story in their head.

He needn’t have worried. Helen loved it!

The next step: getting the show on stage. So many writers submit their work, only to have it shelved as funding is hard to come by. Not many want to take a risk in the industry, so the brothers invested themselves, along with a loan from a generous uncle.

They also published the work themselves. A lesson they learnt from being stung at a young age. Rob tells us he still, to this day, needs to ask permission from publishers to use his own music. He would receive a sum in advance but nothing like the amount the songs made. Rob and Alan set up Pulse Records as a recording/publishing company in the early eighties, so that they would have control of all their work. The successful company is still going strong today.

With local newspapers on their side, publicity wasn’t a problem. After all, the Liverpool Echo had introduced him to Helen. They had a talented director, Gareth Tudor Price and the amazing Lynn McDermott, Co-Producer, along with Bill Elms, creating the perfect team. They were ready and their first production was at the Empire in 1994. It ran for two weeks and saw 32,000 pack the auditorium, making it a huge success.

Normal life resumed but constant requests to rerun the show prompted the 2005 production, again, it was critically acclaimed but sadly, they weren’t making any money. Even though it grossed a couple of million, they simply recouped their outlay with a pat on the back. A tour was needed. Realising that a musical production wasn’t viable to take on the road led Rob to rewrite the work into a play.

In 2016 the new play toured around 8 theatres; another resounding success is when Rob started working on ‘By the Waters of Liverpool’ with Helen, her third book. The idea was to run the show bi-annually. Rob finished the script in 2019, again showing at the Empire. Off the back of its success, they put together a 17-theatre tour the following year, only three of which were shown before the pandemic hit. They were forced to close.

HELEN FORRESTER AUTHOR

HELEN FORRESTER

Helen Forester was born in Hoylake, Cheshire in 1919 and was the eldest of seven children. She was the author of four phenomenally successful volumes of autobiography and many equally popular novels. Helen’s memoirs recount the years of hardship that she and her family suffered in Depression-era Liverpool, the city that features prominently throughout her work.

In 1950, Helen married her husband, Avadh Bhatia, and moved to India, far away from her Merseyside home. They eventually settled in Alberta, Canada where she lived for almost sixty years. Helen was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Liverpool in 1988 and by the University of Alberta in 1993.

Helen died in 2011 aged ninety-two and her writing continues to inspire readers around the world.

Rob realised after the time out that starting back with By the Waters of Liverpool was foolish, so will restart the cycle with Twopence on September 6th at the Floral Pavilion, travelling across the country going to places such as Croydon and Coventry and then By the Waters of Liverpool will start showing in March allowing people to watch both in the correct sequence.

Rob tells us the importance of both productions is provenance, he has a stack of letters and facts from Helen, he spoke with her often before her death in 2011 at the age of 92, everything he wrote Helen was heavily involved, so if people want to see a production as close to Helen writing it herself, this is the one to watch. Rob has the sole rights and tells us Helen entrusted him with her work, nobody else, something he is fiercely proud of, both shows have her ‘prints’ all over them.

He recalls seeing Caitlin Moran holding up Twopence on Sky Arts about 3 years ago saying it was the most important book she had ever read, had it not been for the welfare system Caitlan would have been in the same position as Helen Forrester which politized him immediately, “It’s a serious historical document, it’s part of the national curriculum as well because of its importance, it stays with you, there’s just something about it. And now it’s more relevant than ever, thankfully we have a welfare system to pick up the pieces but back then we didn’t have any.”

He still misses Helen to this day, describing her as a feisty woman who explained to everyone that spoke of her ‘novel’ that it was an autobiography, a portrait of her life, a wonderful woman growing up in abject poverty in the 1930’s who ended up being a truly remarkable author.