Emeka Sesay, Francis Lovehall and Kedar Williams-Stirling in Red Pitch
(Picture: Craig Fuller)Behind its up-to-the-minute London argot, Tyrell Williams’s tale of three young, black, wannabe footballers is a quaint tale of awkward male friendship. Teenagers Bilal, Joey and Omz kick balls and banter back and forth on the footie pitch of their south London housing estate, pinning their future hopes on a trial for QPR. Daniel Bailey’s production demands deft footwork and a high level of fitness as well as verbal agility from his likeable cast: it’s 90 minutes of end-to-end stuff.
Swaggering, personable Bilal (Kedar Williams-Stirling) is pushed by his domineering dad, who once had a shot with Leyton Orient. Coiled-spring Omz (Francis Lovehall) is the only one of them who’s Muslim, and effectively a carer for his young brother and confused grandad. The most finely-drawn character is lanky peacemaker Joey (Emeka Sesay), whose mum works for the NHS and who alone has a backup plan. He’s the goalie, naturally. Fractious and occasionally hostile, they are united by bonds of long friendship and by their obsessions: footie, food, Instagram, girls, probably in that order.
As well as a coming-of-age story, this is an account of social displacement by gentrification. The estate is being torn down and rebuilt around the boys’ ears, families are moving away, and the local Morley’s chicken shop has become a Costa Coffee. The red pitch is a reminder of how things used to be, where codes of honour established in the playground still hold sway, hence the trio’s superstitious double-slap of the railings each time they leave. It’s still rare to see a play about young, black, working-class youths on our stages: rarer still to see one in which they are celebrated like this.
Williams made his name with the web series #HoodDocumentary and is currently developing TV projects. This is his first full-length play and it’s a mixture of the fresh and the familiar. If the way the boys fall in and out with each other is predictable, his chosen form of snapshot on-the-pitch setups makes the plot pacy and exciting. The language – cappin’, bussin’, “making Ps off endz” – is rich and vivid. It’s also very funny. “You’re rich, man,” Omz tells Joey, “your family’s got a Gucci belt!”
Bailey’s energetic, artfully staged production turns us into spectators and therefore invested participants in the action – particularly the front row, who occasionally have to pass a ball back. Each of the characters has a distinct body language: Bilal almost caressing himself, Omz full of bottled resentment, Joey loose-limbed and relaxed. But in action they are all quick, responsive and in tune. This show is as physically demanding as Ella Road’s Fair Play, about gender and drive in female athletics, staged here in December. And if Williams’s play isn’t quite as sharp and subtle as Road’s, the team still plays a blinder.
