The city on the Mersey has inspired and captivated generations of artists, writes Carmel Morgan. One major reason for this is the generosity of spirit among musicians, writers and film-makers, who see it as their responsibility to foster new talent
If you are an outsider, Liverpool accosts you in one of two ways: it either gets right up your nose, or right into your blood. It doesn't do indifference. It is an uninhibited city, friendly, generous and democratic. Especially democratic: shaped by its past, optimistic about its future, and gloriously engaged in the moment. When the Danish footballer Jan Molby played for Liverpool he said that he loved living in Liverpool "because when you go out for a drink on Tuesday night and get a stay-behind, no one is thinking about Wednesday morning".
That isn't a simple case of hedonism. There is something invigorating in the air and in the psyche of Liverpudlians. I arrived in Liverpool as a student 23 years ago and never left, for the city had me in its thrall from the moment I stepped out of Lime Street Station. It was, firstly, the sheer physicality of the place: the majesty of St George's Hall, the faded Deco grandeur of the Royal Court, the scale, the ambition, the light, the seagulls - and in the middle distance, the Pier Head. I could see one Liver Bird. Coming from Oxford, it suddenly dawned on me that I craved water.
Like many students, I chose to study in Liverpool because of its music scene, as propagated by the late John Peel on his BBC Radio 1 show. Peel himself was, of course, a feted Liverpudlian, although technically from "over the water". "Over the water": you hear that phrase repeatedly in this maritime city. It can refer to both the Wirral and - from that side of the estuary - to Liverpool itself, placing the emphasis, significantly, on the River Mersey. I love the wistful lyricism of the phrase: its nod to Ireland, America, emigrants, immigrants, landings and departures; and the estuary that is not just the Pool of Life, more its elixir.
Today the Pier Head is a Unesco World Heritage Site. With only 900 such sites in the world, the waterfront is as highly regarded as the Pyramids, the Great Wall of China and the Barrier Reef, and aside from London, the European Capital of Culture 2008 boasts more Grade I listed buildings and monuments, more art galleries and international exhibitions than any other UK city. Ever since the Beatles put it on the cultural map more than 40 years ago, the city has seen itself as at the centre of popular culture. It's little wonder that Liverpool has a superiority complex. Its innate confidence has inspired thousands of creative people into making art and shaking things up.
For Liverpool bands, The Cavern of the Sixties begat Eric's of the late Seventies and early Eighties. The Beatles cast a long shadow, but some bands emerge from it more brightly than others. Half Man Half Biscuit (who hail from Over The Water) called one of their albums Four Lads Who Shook The Wirral. (Other classic numbers include "I Left My Heart in Papworth General" and "If I'd Known You Were Coming I'd Have Slit Me Wrists").
For writers and poets, the city has no shortage of role models. Charles Dickens was a regular visitor to Liverpool in the mid-nineteenth century. Last month, for the third year running, The Reader magazine honoured his memory by staging the "Penny Readings" in St George's Hall. In 1842 Dickens had read aloud to an audience of rich and poor alike, insisting upon a nominal entry fee of one penny. Packed to the rafters, the event in December was inspirational. A giant cardboard image of Dickens stood on the stage throughout. The one-pence tickets were snapped up in two days. Dickens drew inspiration from the Port of Liverpool and Liverpool from him.
Many of those attracted to fiction drama today have turned to film and television to express their creativity. Sol Papadopoulos, London-born and -bred, came to Liverpool in 1980 to study marine engineering and stayed. The founder and co-director of Hurricane Films (with four Royal Television Society awards and one Bafta nomination under his belt), Papadopoulos recalls the excitement of the Liverpool underground in the early Eighties.
"I got sucked into the Liverpool creative universe. I fell in with a film-making gang - Chris Bernard, Margi and Frank Clarke. They were trying to make Letter to Brezhnev. There was such an energy and buzz about them. It was about making things happen. We try to adhere to that today, though everything has become more organised and more regulated."
Papadopoulos is at pains to mention Liverpudlians' generosity. "It's important to be generous with what you have. It cascades on." With Roy Boulter (an experienced screenwriter and drummer with The Farm) as fellow company director, Hurricane embarked upon a four-year film project with schoolchildren and young people from the deprived suburb of Garston. Under The Mud, written by and starring these young people, has since played at film festivals in Los Angeles, Belfast, Cannes, Cambridge, San Francisco and Galway. It is testament to Boulter's and Papadopoulos' dedication and determination. They certainly didn't do it for the money.
For Liverpool writer Jan McVerry (Clocking Off, Forsyte Saga, Coronation Street) what the city offered was role models. "We were lucky to have a grassroots tradition to encourage people. Plays, poetry, short stories - our generation had Willy Russell, Alan Bleasdale and, slightly later, Jimmy McGovern. It made us realise that you don't just have to do this in a garret or a community centre. This could be your career."
She too recalls the generosity of the writers who had already "made it". "I remember seeing Jimmy McGovern in a pub and telling him that I was a new writer - and he gave me his home address."
Jan, in turn, was generous to me and as I slowly tunnelled my way out of PR, it was she and Liverpool writers Joe Ainsworth (Brookside, The Lakes, Holby City), Shaun Duggan (whose first play premiered at London's Royal Court) and Roy Boulter himself (Brookside) who gave me advice and feedback on my earliest, paltry efforts. Jan even gave me her computer.
For Caroline Aherne, the role models were Willy Russell and Jimmy McGovern. Aherne studied drama at Liverpool Polytechnic in the early Eighties. A Brookside fanatic, she wrote her dissertation on it and Jimmy McGovern. And, of course, she later cast Ricky Tomlinson and Sue Johnston, who played Brookside's Bobby and Sheila Grant, as Jim and Barbara Royle.
Like so many Liverpool screenwriters, I cut my teeth on Brookside. No other city could have produced such a groundbreaking soap, firmly rooted in reality, in ordinary despair and quiet happiness. It was funny, gritty and addictive.
So when the year of culture is over, at midnight on 31 December 2008, will Liverpool cease as a cultural capital? As if. The crown will pass to another, but the beauty lives on. And so does the vitality. The city knows where it has come from, and it knows its creative place in the world. Since Liverpool was awarded Capital of Culture status, visitor expenditure has topped £400 million. You can stick as many All Bar Ones or Caffe Unos on its streets as you like, but Liverpool will never be homogenised into some kind of Everytown.
If you are a non-believer or an agnostic - or if you've never been to Liverpool - Sol Papadopoulos or I will be glad to meet you, under a particular bare statue, and to show you the wondrous sights of our adopted home town. Conversion is guaranteed. Email me at carmel.morgan@btinternet.com or Sol Papadopoulos at info@hurricanefilms.co.uk