Liverpoool Arts community Joe Riley Phil Key dinner

Hosted most pleasant dinner at my home to mark the retirement of Joe Riley and Phil Key, long-serving and much loved arts editors of the Echo and Liverpool Daily Post respectively.

Made a short speech (can't help myself) at which I commented on their very different styles.

Joe was always more combative as a reviewer - the punters are paying and they desreve the warts-and-all assessment of a production.

Phil, equally knowledgeable, was kinder. He sought to see some good in everything he watched.

I will miss both of them massively.

We had a fantastic turn-out of the biggest and best players on the Liverpool Arts scene. Which shows just how highly Joe and Phil are thought of.

Good luck to their successors, Catherine Jones and Laura Davis. They have big shoes to step into.