The tale of an infamous dry ski slope development in Merseyside, with the slope built "The wrong way round" is heading for the stage, as Liverpool's Royal Court theatre stages 'Taking The Piste' by playwright Kieran Lynn this summer.
The comedy tells the tale of Kirkby's ill‑fated 1970s ski slope, a project so chaotic and in hindsight, a mix of cronyism, poor planning and public‑money waste, that even its creators now admit it sounds fictional.
Built for £140,000 and demolished within a decade, the slope (pictured below) became a local embarrassment after it emerged it had been constructed without planning permission, on land the council didn't own, directly over a water main and with the slope built the wrong way round so skiers descended facing into the sun and ended their run by the M57 motorway. Before the slope was even built there was even a "free tip in Kirkby" advertised in local newspapers for people to dump waste, which was then integrated into the (inevitably unstable) slope base.
Taking The Piste is currently scheduled to run from June 19th to July 4th, 2026
