REVIEW - Dear England is fascinating, heartbreaking and heartwarming - a must watch!

On Sunday, we went to Lowry, Salford to see Dear England. Read what our reviewer Karen Ryder had this brilliant production...

“Sweet Caroline!  Good times never felt so good!”

Go on, you know you want to shout out “So good!  So good!  So good!”  This song may somehow have found itself attached to our nation and England fans everywhere, (and I’m pleased to say makes a fabulous appearance in this production), but I cannot stress this enough; just as you do not have to have the slightest bit of interest in football to enjoy this song, neither do you need it to appreciate and adore Dear England.  Whilst I have been born and raised on the beautiful game, I had at least half a dozen friends in the theatre today who do not follow football or have any desire to do so, but they were blown away by the relatability of this production for its ability to capture the highs and lows of real-life people and the complexity of life in our ever changing country.  If you do follow football however, you will revel in the story and characters you are very familiar with but perhaps find you have only scratched the surface of what you think you know. 

Dear England is set against the backdrop of Gareth Southgate’s reign as England manager, and the legacy of hurt he inherits from years of unsuccessful tournaments, including his own personal trauma from missing a now historical penalty in 1996.  However, instead of accepting the weight of England’s story that has been passed down from generation to generation, he begins to challenge it.  He asks questions that have never dared to be asked before.  Why does the nation have the expectation that we should always win? Why get so angry when we don’t?  The fact is we have only ever won once and that was in 1966!  Why do we find ourselves in countless penalty shoot outs?  Why can’t we win them?  Why can’t we win full stop?  Why is the culture aimed solely on physical strength with no focus on mental strength or agility?  And why is being England Manager one of the most scrutinised jobs in sport and known as the impossible job?  As Southgate advocates for change against an army of ridicule, he starts to discover that in order to create true change, he must first face his own demons and stop running from fear.  With renowned psychologist Pippa Grange by his side, they discover that perhaps the toughest game they need to win is breaking down the stigma of mental health, particularly in men’s sports.  As they strive to create change and challenge the entire institutionalised rhetoric of sport, the promise of a new future begins to shine through via the formation of an innovative collective culture within the England camp.  As we witness these young players being a target for hate, racism, classism, and judgement, we are bluntly told that perhaps it isn’t a case of the England team learning how to win, but maybe that England fans need to learn how to lose.  These universal themes of mental health, hope, redemption, facing our fears, and writing our own story strike a poignant chord with everyone in the audience, and prompt us to start being honest with ourselves and taking accountability for the way in which we choose to react and respond when faced with difficulty.

The National Theatre have produced a masterpiece with James Graham’s Dear England.  It is sensational.  They have scored a hat-trick with story, cast and creatives, resulting in a world class win that will appeal to both theatre and football fans alike.  Atmosphere is illuminating throughout, and as the play kicks off, we watch in awe as Wembley Stadium’s twin towers slowly rise to the roaring and pulsating vibrations of a passionate football crowd.  It is a powerful moment, and as someone who was brought up on football and visited the old Wembley numerous times, it was unexpectedly emotional.  As Southgate watches over his past self, missing a crucial penalty in 1996, the existential mood and lyrics of The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony ring out.  England’s timeline is brought up to date via the various incarnations of football kits mounted on lockers, which are danced across the stage.  This is followed by an impressive walk down memory lane as we see the exits of Southgate’s predecessors, including Graham Taylor, Sven-Goran Eriksson, Fabio Capello, and Sam Allardyce, who declares he wasn’t sacked after one day but instead, it was decided by mutual agreement, that he would voluntarily resign!  As impressive images, videos, lights, and music dazzle our senses, the stage explode with a cacophony of characters from all walks of life, buzzing with excitement, opinions and energy about the upcoming 2016 Euro’s and their varying opinions on Southgate’s new position as manager. 

This is all set to bustling chants of catchy England football songs, creating an adrenaline fuelled atmosphere that holds you captivated in the palm of its passionate hand.  As the fans quickly double up as members of the press to interview the various managers, including Southgate himself, the witty and creative genius of award-winning director Rupert Goold is beautifully at play.  Fans merge effortlessly into press by the inventive switch of their props representing microphones, held out to capture the parting words of each manager in turn, such as a police truncheon, a gardener holding out their trowel, a Judge using their gavel, a clown offering a red nose on top of a pen, a youth with a rolled up magazine, a barber using a razor, or a tennis player using his racket.  Every moment in this production has clearly had hours of thought and creativity behind it, resulting in a slick and extremely polished performance, yet it equally shines with authenticity in those perfectly imperfect human moments, from unfinished sentences that overlap, speed up, slow down, and are delivered with words, blinks, gestures, and communicate everything that is left unspoken.

Dear England has perfected the art of always coaxing the audience into its required state.  This squad of creatives are top of their game.  Set designer Es Devlin incorporates a revolving stage as our own ticking clock, swiftly allowing the months and years to pass by as the cast are fantastically choreographed throughout, equally using the moveable lockers as doorways to the past and present.  The performance is watched over by the iconic Wembley halo, which includes light and video design from Jon Clark and Ash J Woodward.  Combined with sound design from Dan Balfour and Tom Gibbons, the question of whether you have ever attended a football match or not becomes irrelevant as you are immediately transported into the throbbing crowd.  As genuine images and video footage are projected in a series of ways from dramatic 180 panorama to roll strips of film reels, you become totally swept up in the moment time and time again.  It is quite remarkable how you can feel such joy, pride, and passion over past events as if living it for the first time and equally feel the pulse racing tension and fear during the penalty shoot outs, even though we already know the results.  And the even weirder thing is, despite this last statement, you still find yourself, beyond all sense, hoping that they’ll be a different outcome!  As a previous season ticket holder for over 15 years, I’ve been to countless football matches in my time, and these feelings were the real deal.  Dear England is so rooted and invested in the complexities and authenticity of its nation that it not only makes you feel love, joy, tension, and nervous energy, but it has that brilliant British backbone of comedy and humour in both the best and worst of times.  There are some absolutely cracking lines in the show that will have you belly laughing out loud.     

The cast are exceptional and expertly walk the line between occupying mannerisms and traits of their real-life characters without ever turning them into caricatures.  Gwilym Lee as Gareth Southgate is inspiring.  He showcases this quiet and shy, yet resilient and powerful man with the utter most respect and left everyone in awe of his understated humility and strength.  The detail of his gestures, right down to his facial movements and blinks, were so wonderfully matched to Southgate, that you can see this portrayal was a labour of love.  His Dear England speech, in which Southgate addressed the nation following racial hatred towards his players, was unbelievably moving as he intertwined his deep hurt and incomprehension with a dignified calmness and plea for us to do better.  It was potently powerful.  Liz White as psychologist Pippa Grange carried herself with an entirely authentic authority in a levelled and approachable manner, and I hope she knows just how powerful her performance was, for her speeches reached not only the characters in the show, but the audience too.  Ryan Whittle as Harry Kane has mastered his instantly recognisable vocal style of delivery, but more than that, he embodied the aura of his presence and ability to lead without having to be the loudest one in the room.  His emotional scene towards the end of the show is heartbreaking and is performed with such truth that it packs an incredible punch to the gut.

In contrast, Josh Barrow as Jordan Pickford embodies his wild and untamed energy.  He displays a hunger and desire to be at the top of his game and creates a lot of humour in the scenes when they are practising penalties.  He brings us a cracking sense of Northeast humour, matched with a just about controlled temper that is always threatening to erupt.  With each cast member genuinely giving exemplary performances, many of which multi role, I could write numerous superlatives and observations about their skills over and over, but the best advice would be to simply go and see for yourself, because there really is so much to see and this cast are truly at the top of their game.  This production is full of seasoned actors including the likes of Matt Bardock as coach Mike Webster and Martin Marquez in numerous roles, to those making their professional theatre debut such as Jude Carmichael as Marcus Rashford.  This large cast expertly pass the story to one another, head one liners into the back of the net, and tackle difficult topics with grace and respect, making them a winning team no matter what formation they play in.  

I do not say this lightly, but Dear England is the best play I have ever had the privilege of watching.  It is storytelling at its best offering joy, compassion, laughter, angst, drama and tension.  Most importantly, it offers hope.  Hope of redemption.  Hope of change.  Hope that even though we cannot change our history, we can change our responses and reactions to our past, so that we may create the future we desire, rather than living by the collective stories, traumas, and expectations that have gone before.  Our future is our own.  Our past can guide us, can teach us, but it does not have to define who we are today.  We do not have to live in its shadows.  We can embrace it as a part of our story, knowing the rest is still unwritten.  Dear England may follow the path of our nations team under the leadership of Gareth Southgate, but its story is much bigger than football.  It is a phenomenal delve into humanity, with psychological explorations of how easily we allow fear to stifle our dreams, and how difficult it is to live authentically.  It is fascinating, heartbreaking, and heartwarming in equal measures, and I cannot praise James Graham’s play enough.  I experienced empathy, sympathy, questioned what it means to be an English football fan, and examined the double-edged sword of both the pride and shame that can bring.  By the end of the play, I was surprisingly emotional as the whole audience came together in a rousing rendition of ‘Sweet Caroline’ and I had no words.  None were needed though, for James Graham had written them all so beautifully that the only thing left was to feel them.  To feel the beautiful game through his beautiful play.  And so, I’ll end with a Harry Kane observation.  The winning England team of ‘66 had an invigorating freedom that many of us don’t allow ourselves today.  They simply didn’t care what they looked like!  They were authentically themselves.  They didn’t care if they looked goofy, they didn’t care what people thought of them, to the point that a winning Nobby Stiles unaffectedly took out his false teeth and danced the uncoordinated dance of dad dancers everywhere!  And so perhaps we should all aim to live a life where we always, always, dance like Nobby!

WE SCORE DEAR ENGLAND...




Dear England is on at Lowry, Salford until Sunday 29th June 2025.

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