The Stage

McGovern returns to stage writing with King Cotton

Published Tuesday 27 February 2007 at 13:35 by Alistair Smith

Cracker creator Jimmy McGovern is writing his first work for the stage in 25 years, in a collaboration with South Bank Centre artistic director Jude Kelly and Blackadder composer Howard Goodall.

King Cotton will open at The Lowry in Salford this September, before moving on to the Liverpool Empire. The musical deals with the Lancashire Cotton Famine - a depression in the north west’s cotton industry, created by the American Civil War, which led to deprivation in Lancashire mill towns - and McGovern says the show will “combine the sound of the cotton field with brass band music”. It will be told through the eyes of a black slave working on an American cotton plantation and a Lancashire mill worker.

The production marks McGovern’s return to writing for the stage after a hiatus of a quarter century, having been put off by “two disasters” early in his career - City Echoes and True Romance.

“My first play was on the main stage at the Liverpool Playhouse, immediately preceding Blood Brothers,” he told The Stage. “It was a total flop and it deserved to be. It was awful. I look back at it and cringe.

“I didn’t particularly want to write for theatre. I always imagined that if you wrote for the stage you have a card in your wallet which says ‘licence to bore’. I do often go to the theatre but I’m usually bored. But this process has taught me that there is more to writing for the theatre than I realised.”

McGovern said he hoped the work would have a life beyond Salford and Liverpool but stressed that it would not be a “conventional West End musical”, although its exact form was still being worked on. He added that Kelly was having a large role in shaping the work. “I think Jude’s idea is to bring the brass band on stage,” he said. “But, what is up for grabs at the moment is how we use the music.”

King Cotton is produced by The Lowry and co-commissioned by The Lowry and the Liverpool Culture Company. The show will be staged to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade and Liverpool’s 800th anniversary.