Will no one think of the playwrights? Defeat in Sunday’s Euros final stole the perfect ending from James Graham, who is currently updating his footballing hit Dear England for its return to the stage next year. Still, at least Gareth Southgate’s men didn’t go out in their quarter-final shootout against Switzerland. The possibility that an underwhelming campaign might be ended by penalties caused a flurry of texts between Graham and director Rupert Goold at the end of extra-time.
Sports are having a moment in the theatre. Red Pitch, like Dear England, used football to explore what it means to live in the UK today, exploring gentrification through the lives of three teenage hopefuls on a south London estate. Red Speedo, which follows an elite swimmer caught doping, has just opened at the Orange Tree. Director Matthew Dunster has pursued the project for six years. “It’s the most finely tuned play about capitalism that I’ve come across for a very long time – all the moral compromises that the characters make in the name of success.” Kate Attwell’s Testmatch was recently performed in the same space, interrogating racism and other colonial legacies through two cricket matches set 200 years apart.
