Why the show must go on for the Empire's Lee - after 34 years

LOYAL WORKER'S THREE DECADES AT CITY THEATRE

- by HANNAH REES

Lee says he enjoys the variety of the job

I ALWAYS say “you don’t have to like sweets to work in a sweet shop, do you?” says Lee Moore.

Lee has worked at Liverpool's Empire Theatre for 34 years - but says theatre isn’t really his thing. “I don’t mind plays, musicals I don’t like. You just start getting into it and then they start singing, and it ruins it for me,” he adds.

The 50-year-old from Huyton still remembers his very first day at the Empire, on December 30, 1991. He worked alongside his mum, Lil Moore, who was a much-loved character and another of the Empire's longest serving members of staff when she left around 2018.

Lee told the ECHO: “[When I started] it was two shows a day, and I think it was about £6 a show. So when you're 16 back in 1991, that’s like a grand. So I followed the money and stayed here.

“[I was] on the doors ripping tickets. In them days, they were paper tickets. You just had to rip them, point the punters to where they were going to go, wherever they were sat.

“[My mum] started in 1984 and she finished about 2018. She got an illness and passed away just after Covid started. One of my sisters worked here, she was ushering. Then one of my other sisters was box office manager for 20-odd years. My brother worked backstage for 20-odd years.