When entering a theatre these days one can never be too careful. At Drury Lane you might find yourself attending a rave when you innocently expected a Shakespearean comedy (Jamie Lloyd’s Much Ado About Nothing). Go to the Barbican for Ostermeier’s The Seagull and you’ll find Chekhov by way of a folk rock concert. And last night at the National Theatre, avidly anticipating a State of the Nation play, I was swept up in all the fervour and rowdy joy of a football match at a miniature Wembley Stadium. Theatre is always quicksilver, shapeshifting. Yet with the fourth wall firmly knocked down, we’re being made to understand that a ticket for a night in the stalls in 2025 promises not just a play but an event.
Dear England delivers. Originally directed by Rupert Goold in 2023, in this revival of James Graham’s Olivier Award-winning play, Elin Schofield leads the new team with vigour. The story unfolds around the career of Gareth Southgate, an erstwhile England player who missed a crucial penalty and twenty years later finds himself promoted to manager. Across the country he’s dismissed as ‘a sweet guy’ – ‘sweet’ in that quintessentially British way of meaning a pushover who hasn’t got the grit to take charge and make hard decisions. But Southgate glimmers with quiet assurance. He has a plan to hire famous sports psychologist Dr Pippa Grange to whip the lions into shape. His men’s team of star players need to be freed from the psychological burdens of British exceptionalism. It is this history of glories and defeats, not sporting ability, that holds them back.
In the central part, Gwilym Lee slips into Southgate’s waistcoated suit with an intricate understanding of the football manager’s psychology. Maintaining a deep belief in the strength of the England team, he’s dauntless; but his mind is also a chasm of whirring ghosts, with the foremost spectre being that dratted penalty circa 1996. Lee says all this in apparently incidental gestures. Sweeping handshakes show him playing ‘the boss’, yet it’s in the uneasiness where he quietly shines; restless hands and undulating eyebrows contain their own language of past pain and repressed doubt.
Filling out the England team are a strapping squad of young and well-drilled actors. Under less adept direction their parts could feel like cameos – and there are moments when the play does toy with cartoon cut-out characterisations (Boris, Theresa and Liz all get their sorry resurrections) – but here they are thoughtfully realised. Ryan Whittle is devastatingly laconic as treasured captain Harry Kane. Josh Barrow reprising his role as Jordan Pickford is a delightful amalgam of awkwardness, basking in the greatness thrust upon him while remaining as callow and green as his goalie kit. And Jude Carmichael’s spiritual and deeply humane Marcus Rashford achieves something uncommonly affecting given his limited lines. My only cavil was Liz White’s Dr Pippa Grange, who is an amiable but glibly generic therapist; to make an impact, the character requires shades of colour, and her emotional examinations of players needs to be sustained by greater sympathetic insight.
Pleasingly Dear England also benefits from a brisk and agile script that – alas, unlike our three lions – repeatedly shoots and scores. Writer James Graham has conducted meticulous research in his update of the original, yet it always feels like a light touch. Between the lines of his dialogue, the unmistakable voice of each character is somehow caught. Movement also has its part to play. In stunningly choreographed ball-less matches, these players (theatrical and sporting) use the stage space as strategically as a pitch and perform their moves balletically, reminding the audience why football is referred to as the beautiful game.
Graham’s Dear England is an indisputably epic play that makes you want to cry ‘Long live the National’ and run to find more knights of the realm with Sir Gareth Southgate’s noble character. It is pure, unfettered elation, a welcome consolidation of national identity in the building where what Britishness is, artistically and culturally, must be a matter of continual interest. Brecht surely would have approved; and, even though my acquaintance with football has never gotten beyond flirtation, so do I.
Dear England
By James Graham
Revival director: Elin Schofield
Photo credits: Marc Brenner
Cast includes: Gwilym Lee; Liz White; Ryan Whittle; Jude Carmichael; Ryan Donaldson; Felixe Forde; Tane Siah; Gamba Cole; Tristan Waterson.
Until: At the National Theatre until Saturday 24th May 2025
At the Lowry, Salford, 29th May until 29th June. Then touring.
Running Time: 2 hours and 50 minutes, including an interval