As a beacon of the best Liverpudlian writing, the Everyman has flickered only intermittently of late. But if the glory days of Willy Russell and Alan Bleasdale seem long behind, Maurice Bessman's one-man comedy about an unemployed ship's cook has enough spice to keep things simmering for the moment. Bessman tells the sad, simple tale of Godfrey, a galley-slave for 30 years, who has the twin disadvantages of being over 50 years old and from Liverpool rather than Latvia. The shipping lines have discovered the benefits of cheap eastern European labour, and cordon-bleu salts like Godfrey have become an expendable luxury.
Godfrey functions as a form of male Shirley Valentine in reverse: a solitary, scouse drifter who returns from abroad and has to rediscover himself at home. Bessman astutely handles his shifting patterns of reminiscence and resentment as Godfrey finds himself washed up in a boarding house with nothing but his cherished collection of knives, Motown records and a penis-enlargement device useful for those long nights at sea.
The piece also takes its place in the perilous tradition of plays that demand cookery demonstrations on stage. To the spaghetti bolognese cooked and eaten in David Hare's Skylight and the apple strudel central to Arnold Wesker's Four Seasons, we can now add Godfrey's veal fricassee, enlivened with enough chilli powder to make eyes water 15 rows back.
Alone on stage, the outstanding Louis Emerick negotiates the pitfalls with unflappable assurance. Heather Robson's energetic direction and Jocelyn Meall's evocative design ensure that the one-man format lacks nothing in visual impetus.
As the first joint-commission between the recently amalgamated Playhouse and Everyman theatres, Bessman's work seems rather too modest to signal a full-scale renaissance in Scouse social drama. But like its landlocked hero, it is to be hoped that this tentative toe-in-the-water is but a prelude to pushing the boat out properly.
· Until Saturday. Box office: 0151-709 4776.
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