James Graham is a glorious chronicler of the English. Whether it be possibly cheating gameshow guests, definitely scheming politicians, or left-behind miners and the communities that support and surround them, Graham finds a love for his subjects no matter who they are. He writes the English both as we are and as we would like to see ourselves and he blends the two so seamlessly that we can learn something from the mirror he holds up to our culture. We probably aren’t as good as Graham would like us to be, but he sure makes us want to live up to his expectations.
So it is with Dear England – the story (so far) of Gareth Southgate’s (Joseph Fiennes) post-Brexit approach to managing the national men’s football squad. I say post-Brexit deliberately because it is the theme that dare not speak its name. The show is about the English identity as it was on show throughout the England squad’s more recent – and relatively successful – international tournaments.
England has demons, as does Southgate. In the play, England’s demons are most prominently displayed as three successive prime ministers – May, Johnson and Truss – replicate Southgate’s most famous loss – the missed penalty against Germany during Euro 96. The simile is unsubtle – the politicians all arrived in a blaze of hubris and signally failed to then hit the spot.
Southgate is portrayed – by Graham and more widely – as a man comfortable with wrestling with his demons and trying to help others – particularly his young squad – to do so too. To this end, he brings in sports psychologist Pippa Grange (Gina McKee). She works with the team to find their rhythm and their (3 lion) heart.
Does she succeed? That’s an interesting question at the heart of this play. What is success? Spoilers, but England’s men do not win their international competition. but the people they come out of the other side of that tournament as – and the way they have developed as a squad perhaps shows us all that while ‘football is life’, there’s more to life than football – even for footballers.
The cast are superb and energetic throughout even if occasionally it felt like they were more parodying than embodying their alter egos. The direction was frenetic to the point of occasionally being dazzling and sometimes being almost too much. But the energy on display throughout made the moments of silence, where we were placed in the mind and heart of a young player as they felt the hopes of a nation on their shoulders even more powerful.
Dear England is probably not a depiction of quite the football team we would like – they don’t win. It’s probably not a true depiction of the country to whom Southgate penned the letter that gives the play its title. But this is definitely a play that wants us to do, be and feel better. Through support not chiding. Through heart not wallet. Through embracing our differences not racing from them in a haze of schoolboy alcoholism that has so affected previous England squads.
Dear England is the state-of-the-nation-we-want-to-be and maybe, just maybe, that’s what we need.