Red or Dead review – Peter Mullan never walks alone as Liverpool FC hero Bill Shankly

Bated breath … Peter Mullan as Bill Shankly in Red or Dead at Liverpool’s Royal Court. Photograph: Atanas Paskalev

In 2016, an adaptation of David Peace’s The Damned United was staged in Leeds and Derby where its pugnacious subject, Brian Clough, is still viewed as villain and hero respectively. Peace’s next football novel was Red or Dead, a 700-page opus about Liverpool FC’s eternally beloved manager Bill Shankly. It is similarly adapted on home turf: the Royal Court has laid out the red carpet, serving Shanks pies and Shanks pints, honouring the man who transformed the club.

The Damned United had a cast of 11 and was bulked out with human-size Subbuteo-style mannequins. Red or Dead assembles a whopping 52-strong ensemble who almost continuously fill the stage, adapter and director Phillip Breen evidently taking his cue from the anthem You’ll Never Walk Alone. In the lead role is film and TV star Peter Mullan, finally returning to the stage in a casting coup that gains resonance from a career as entwined with socialism as Shankly’s.