Saturday 1st July 2023, matinee
As any football fan will already know, the England football team is a highly appropriate subject for drama: the team seemed to be on a emotional rollercoaster of lofty fantasy followed by crushing disappointment, usually followed by a prolonged and painfully public period of bewilderment and self-flagellation.
The England Manager’s job had long been considered a poison chalice, and high death toll confirms this. And yet, Gareth Southgate, originally appointed as an interim manager, has held out for nearly seven years, and managed to survive the worst excesses of the British tabloid press unscathed.
When he is offered the job and says he’s got a ‘few ideas’ he wants to try out, the scene is set for some high drama, and Dear England delivers with a vengeance.
The impressive Olivier Theatre, which can sometimes become an atmospheric black hole, was extremely well used in this production. The large company took on a huge variety of roles, and the revolve kept the action moving. The context was set with ‘vox pops’, cameos from key figures inside and outside football, and a single circular LED ticker tape spanning the stage ensures we are informed of all the relevant context, allowing football fans and non-fans like to follow the minutiae of the games, scores, and those crucial penalty shoot-outs that form the dramatic arc of the play.
The football sequences cleverly done – the actors are just athletic enough to convince as footballers and the actual recreations using sound and light build sufficient tension to ensure the stakes are sufficiently high. The ending of the first half has a skillful build up, and not to give anything away, but the audience is clapping the production and the England Team.
The play is a brilliant dissection of the relationship between the Media and English Sport, with unrealistic expectations of the team built up for every tournament, replaced by searing criticism at the smallest failure. What follows is an investigation into the English psyche, which covers not just ‘sports psychology’, but an attempt to define what ‘England’ even means, and what the role of our footballers should be. Sportsmen first and foremost, or role models?
If this sounds serious and po-faced, it isn’t. James Graham’s brilliantly generates a genuine sense of camaraderie in the team, and plenty of humour, as well as moving the action along quickly and efficiently.
Joseph Fiennes not only gives us an uncanny embodiment of Gareth Southgate, his voice, physicality and mannerisms, he delivers and compelling and touching performance as the man who dared to bare his soul to the public and who tried to make sure what happened to him could never happen again.
Gina McKee is perfectly cast as the psychologist Pippa Grange, brought in to help the team understand what is holding them back. Her ability to capture Pippa Grange’s personality is uncanny, and she brings a mesmerising quality of stillness and emotional warmth to the role. Watching her win round the players with her simple message of forming a team, a genuine team of players who trust and support each other, is both fascinating and satisfying.
The very large cast to an amazing job of portraying an even larger selection of real and fictional characters. We have to give a special mention to Will Close, whose portrayal of Harry Kane was uncanny in its accuracy and a joy to behold as he fulfilled the role of captain both technically and emotionally for the team.
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