Don’t be misled by the title: this two-hander by the actors James Brough and Helen Elizabeth is not some probing social or artistic critique of Liverpool’s status as 2008 European Capital of Culture. In fact, the play, which somehow bagged a Fringe First in Edinburgh last year, is not a probing critique of anything. Rather, it’s a slight and sentimental boy-meets-girl tale that trades on clichés about England’s North-South divide. It climaxes with a preposterous, melodramatic twist that rather detracts from the simple charms of what has gone before.

David, a Cockney wideboy whose broad grin and banter conceal a lonely soul, follows a girl with whom he has spent a one-night stand from London to Liverpool. His romantic gesture proving ineffective, he passes the night in a shop doorway and wakes to find he has been relieved of his wallet, but that warm-hearted people (they are Scousers, after all) have tossed some small change at his feet. He takes these few coins to a betting shop in the hope of winning his train fare back home; and there, working behind the counter, he finds Tina, an acid-tongued local girl with a heart of gold. She helps him out with some tips on dead certs and an attraction is sparked. During the course of a sightseeing day and a night on the town, they exchange family histories: both have errant dads; both are carers, he for his depressive mum, she for her grandmother and younger brother who has Down’s syndrome. Inevitably, they fall for one another – but their love is ill-fated.

The writing alternates between monologues in strained rhyming couplets and dialogue in prose. The latter is far more effective, and facilitates some snappy humour and rapid-fire badinage. But the material is almost threadbare, and the two characters never develop much beyond the obvious stereotypes they represent.

As a performer, Elizabeth has an easy presence and does a nice line in drawling, deadpan wit, while Brough, if faintly self-conscious, is likable enough. But overall the production feels less like a drama than a flimsy showcase for their abilities.

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