IT'S fifty years since three poets: One from Birkenhead, one from Bootle and one from Litherland - a trio of home-grown talent from both sides of the river - created an anthology that became one of the biggest-sellers of all time and made poetry accessible to millions.

Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and Brian Patten, better known as The Mersey Poets, published The Mersey Sound in 1967.

Judging by the sell-out show at the Liverpool Playhouse their work appeals to all generations.

It was a curtain-raiser for a year of poetry celebrations marking this legendary literary work and their solo work too.

The Globe will keep you up-to-date with activities in Liverpool and Wirral.

This feel-good show - without the much-missed Adrian, who died in 2000 - was a joyful celebration of the fact that the poems haven't dated one dot, full stop or apostrophe in all these years.

In fact, bringing in a three-piece band to put music to some of their words of love, rejection, hope, wit, wisdom and the river Mersey is inspired.

Little Machine - keyboards, guitar and banjo - added their own musical accompaniment to the poetry not just from Patten, McGough and Henri but the classics from Shelley, W. B. Yeats and Byron, including an audience particpation segment for the latter poet.

The two-and-a-half-hour gig was packed with many greatest hits from Roger's anthemic Let me die a young man's death and the Cat Protection League to Brian's Armada and The minister for exams.

Roger and Brian opened with a four-poem selection from The Mersey Sound which has just been re-issued by Penguin.

For the rest of the evening it was performances of their later equally well-received work.

Before the show Brian said how they were dismissed by London critics as 'a three-headed pantomime horse'.

Roger said reviewers also said they were writing for 'the great unwashed'.

One reviewer had the audacity to say they would be 'a flash in the pan.'

Oh, how the critics ate their words.

Moments of poignancy, joy, nostagia and optmism came back with a back-projection screen capturing the threesome in their early days.

The words from Adrian's Car crash blues came up on the screen and we all sang along. We, the great unwashed.

Brian and Roger said before the encore that their mate Adrian is always with them.

The audinece know that, too.

The Mersey Sound - 50 years young and getting younger.

Time-less Rhymes and Reasons.

Five stars