 I wager that no other theatre in the UK is staging a better show this weekend. The Everyman's 40th birthday gala on Sunday features a cavalcade of legendary names - Pete Postlethwaite, Anthony Sher, Jonathan Pryce, Bill Nighy, Julie Walters, Matthew Kelly and many more - all in town to perform at the Liverpool theatre where they learnt their trade back in the 70s before stardom beckoned. Since then, Hollywood guru Steven Spielberg has named Postlethwaite as his favourite actor; Sher, Pryce and Nighy have become leading classical actors, while Walters and Kelly have scored top marks with comedy. Indeed, Julie Walters and Matthew Kelly's joint venture on Sunday will be a scene from Mike Stott's comedy, Funny Peculiar, a play which transferred Everyman branding to the West End. And all this is just part of the Everyman story over four decades. There were also those members of the youth theatre - like David Morrissey and Ian Hart, as well as Mark McGann, who with brothers Paul, Steve and Joe would also be in the audience. For the McGanns, who grew up in a three-bedroomed terrace in neighbouring Kensington, the Everyman was a lifeline to the the outside world. Recalls Mark, who first found national fame playing John Lennon in the Everyman musical Imagine: "If it wasn't for that place, I would not be an actor today. "It was a meeting place for people who found themselves up against the excesses of Thatcherism. "I remember all of us losing ourselves wholeheartedly in what was going on. "I think Pete Wylie's quote that the Everyman is Liverpool's third cathedral is hard to beat." And there's more. During the early 1980s, the Everyman gave breaks to actors like Jim Broadbent and John Sessions. | 
