Ahead of the Creative Cities Convention in Liverpool in May, Jimmy Mulville celebrates the rebirth of his home town as a creative powerhouse.
I grew up in the Liverpool of the 1960s and 70s. The Beatles dominated the music scene, we had the two best football teams in the land and a world class concert venue in The Philharmonic Hall, which housed a world class orchestra and still does. I thought I was at the centre of the universe.
Liverpool will always be at the centre of my universe and now the rest of the world is catching up. In line with the government’s stated intentions of moving more of the tv and film activity out of the South East, there is now firm planning to transform the iconic 1930’s art deco Littlewoods Pools Building into a state-of-the-art studio complex and production centre.
The jewel in the crown of this development will be a school for 16 -18-year-olds, offering training in all the various crafts and skills which constitute TV and film production, including digital and AI. Whether it’s in TV, film, games, digital or AI Liverpool will be at the cutting edge. These young people will leave the Liverpool Screenlab (working title) with all the skills necessary to enter the fast-changing landscape of modern content production. We expect this game changing addition to the city will be completed by the end of 2027.
There is also a plan taking shape to hold a two-month training scheme this summer in Liverpool, Leeds and Newcastle, to train groups of school leavers in digital skills to set them up for meaningful employment in a variety of industries. This course has been successfully delivered to date by Lara Taylor and her team at The Andy Taylor Foundation, a charity dedicated to driving diversity and creativity within digital media; opening doors to talent whose potential might otherwise go untapped.
These initiatives are vital if we are to provide an environment in which young people who want to enter the creative industries can stay in a city which was recently voted the best city to live in England. The Combined Authority of Liverpool and Merseyside, led by Liam Robinson and Steve Rotherham, is on a mission to make Liverpool the city of choice for tech companies to set up shop in the city and we will have a young workforce ready to take their place in those companies.
With the recent news of Liverpool notching up record growth since 2019 in the sector bringing £150 million to the local economy and placing Liverpool firmly on the map as one of the leading production centres in the UK, we need to train a workforce that can meet the increasing need for skilled crew to work on the city’s many productions.
Liverpool has a heritage that these new creatives can aspire to – some of the country’s greatest talents cut their teeth there, actors such as Julie Walters, Jonathan Pryce, Bill Nighy, Pete Postlethwaite and Alison Steadman and the contemporary national treasures Stephen Graham and Jody Comer. These actors need words to speak and Liverpool has provided them with some of the best in class: Willy Rusell, Alan Bleasdale and two brilliant Everyman alumni, Jimmy McGovern and Frank Cottrell-Boyce.
Joining me at The Creative Cities Convention in Liverpool this year will be Sir Phil Redmond who created Channel 4’s first soap, set in Liverpool, which provided an entry point for many local people to enter the television industry in front of and behind the camera.
There is no doubt the Liverpool of my youth was a thriving, cultural hotbed of creativity, but the Creative Cities Convention is not about wallowing in past glories, it is very much about starting a conversation about what does the future hold and what do we need to do to ensure that the road ahead holds as many opportunities as previous generations enjoyed.
We are on the cusp of seeing Liverpool in its latest incarnation; a powerhouse of the creative industries for the 21st century. Did you know that Liverpool is the most filmed city outside of London and yet not enough local people can apply to work on these projects due to lack of skills, not lack of ability?
In the 1960s and 70s the Dock Road was lined with factories producing a variety of products and local people worked in those factories. The notion that workers from other parts of the country would come into Liverpool and be employed in those places would have been unthinkable and yet that is what is happening in TV and film today.
Well-paid jobs are being taken not by locals but by people who are brought in from other parts of the country. These new “products’ are made in Liverpool and should be made by the people of Liverpool.
Jimmy Mulville will speak at the Creative Cities Convention in Liverpool on 6 & 7 May. https://www.creativecitiesconvention.com/
Staff Reporter
Share this story
