Review: The Derby-Days at Liverpool's Royal Court ****

It was teeming outside – both with rain, and with fans who didn’t have tickets for the Merseyside derby at Anfield and were intent on finding somewhere dry and warm to catch the game.

Inside the Royal Court yesterday afternoon the rest of us were (oh so aptly) preparing to watch another Liverpool-Everton clash, this one from the pen however and not the penalty box.

Playwright Ian Salmon both shoots and scores with The Derby-Days, a very silly but very enjoyable knockabout comedy which pits Red against Blue in one terraced house somewhere in Bootle.

It’s here that Dave Derby and Debbie Day live in disharmony, the couple’s living room both a shrine to and a battleground over their diametrically opposed allegiances.

Dominic Carter’s sparkie Dave is a die hard Red, while Sarah White’s Debbie (primary school teaching assistant and talented amateur artist) is a dyed-in-the-wool Blue.

Caught in the middle is their daughter Chloe (Ellie Clayton, a natural comedian), who has it seems attempted – in ridiculous, but classic comic convention, fashion – to pacify both, even after making her escape from the madhouse to London.

Now Chloe is on a visit home with her unwitting boyfriend Marc (Elliott Kingsley) in tow and an important announcement to make. If she can keep her parents from tearing each other’s throats out that is.

Salmon’s script (coming in either by design or accident at 45 minutes each way) is agreeably pacy. And director Nicole Behan takes his pass and runs with it, particularly in the first half which builds nicely to a frenetic crescendo as Dave and Debbie’s divisive footballing rivalry escalates in a crescendo of insults, flag-waving and singing.

The four-strong cast work tightly as a team, and while the premise is increasingly outlandish, Carter (last seen on stage at the Court in the inestimable Boys from the Blackstuff) and White remain believable as a couple in a long-term relationship who voice their affection mostly through ribbing and banter.

Clayton holds her own as the fed-up daughter, even if her character’s sanctimonious berating of dad Dave before the interval makes you want to cheer for him, while Kingsley – another Blackstuff alumnus - is given the challenge of balancing the stress and mayhem with what Salmon has written as a rather wet outsider. While it's evidently the way the character has been written, I’d like to see a bit more backbone and a little bit less drippiness.

He does get a very enjoyable scene with Carter in the second half however where Dave’s desperation to make amends leads him into the heart of Everton’s holy of holies, evoked by Jamie Jenkin’s AV on a scrim dropped across designer Alfie Heywood’s sitting room set.

The audience around me on the real derby day certainly got into the spirit of it, especially the Red half, who were evidently buoyed by the final score from Anfield which came just ahead of the interval. Still, despite the result on the pitch and the wild scenes on stage, it was never less than good natured in the auditorium.

Meanwhile it’s a busy old autumn for Salmon. Not only does he have The Derby-Days on at the Royal Court, but his new Beatles’ musical Shake it up Baby! opens at the Epstein Theatre this Friday.

Top: Sarah White as Debbie and Dominic Carter as Dave in The Derby-Days. Photo by Andrew AB Photography.