Dear England – The Lowry

When James Graham originally staged ‘Dear England’ back in June 2023 at the National Theatre, England football fans were daring to dream that their wait over half a century for a tournament victory was finally at an end. English hearts were once again broken at Euro ‘24 by an 86th-minute Spanish goal in the final, the wait for a trophy from our men’s national football team will now enter its seventh decade at the World Cup in the USA next year. Set against this backdrop of perceived failure, Graham has fashioned a superb piece of theatre that examines the effect that ‘fifty-nine years of hurt’ have had on our national psyche, through the lens of our national game and the redemption journey of one man, Gareth Southgate.

Our jumping-off point in the narrative is Wembley Stadium in the Summer of 1996, Southgate (Gwilym Lee) is the England player tasked with scoring a crucial penalty in a shoot-out during the semi-final of the Euro ‘96 against Germany. He missed and England exited the tournament with Southgate subsequently receiving vitriol and abuse which would follow him for the rest of his career. His appointment to the role of England manager in 2016, was met with widespread derision in the football community and his ‘new-fangled’ methods were ridiculed in the hidebound and conservative corridors of the FA. Southgate employs Pippa Grange (Liz White) a sports psychologist to try and understand the reasons why England underachieves at major tournaments and how to conquer the brittle mindset they continually display. This new approach eventually bore fruit with the team reaching the latter stages of consecutive tournaments and teaching the wider nation to become more at ease with its identity in the modern age.

Graham is a fantastic and prolific writer, responsible for some of the most interesting and innovative television and theatre of the last decade. He takes inspiration from a wide range of subject matter – everything from quiz shows to Brexit – and fashion narratives that examine the ‘state of the nation’ with a keenly perceptive eye. His work also possesses wry humour and observation of character, with individual stories making the complex worlds he examines both understandable and accessible. With ‘Dear England’ he clearly had tremendous fun bringing the vivid world of 21st-century football to life and the procession of figures that dominated the world of sport and politics are broadly drawn throughout the three-hour running time of the production. England managers and Prime Ministers provide cameo appearances that appeal equally to those who know these worlds intimately and more casual observers, with very few falling into the crude caricature.

All the cast play their part in creating this world with Gunnar Cauthery memorable as a Walker’s crisp munching Gary Lineker before morphing effortlessly into Sven-Goran Ericsson; Felixe Forde straddling the divide between Theresa May and Alex Scott and Martin Marquez impossibly making both Sam Allardyce and Fabio Capello seem almost decent. The task of breathing life and personality into the players was a particularly difficult one, but Graham shows these young men to be ordinary lads from the streets of Washington, Wythenshawe and the cage football of south London, their authenticity in the roles showing the cocky hesitancy of young men used to being asked to express themselves with deeds on the pitch, not words in the dressing room. Jude Carmichael as Marcus Rashford and Gamba Cole as Raheem Sterling are particularly effective in the scenes where racism is explored and what the cross of St George means to a young British black man. However, with Jordan Pickford (Josh Barrow) living up to the goalkeeper’s reputation for eccentricity and Harry Kane (Ryan Whittle) monosyllabically and mundanely hilarious, plenty of light relief is there to counterbalance the seriousness of the topics explored.

Gwilym Lee inhabits the role of Gareth Southgate to stunning effect, perfectly capturing the inherent ‘bloody niceness’ of the man but also demonstrating his steely determination to inculcate English football with a modern value system that reflected the country the team represented. The title ‘Dear England’ is taken from his open letter to the country in the wake of the pandemic, appealing for the country to stand together in kindness and love at a time of great suffering, and Lee portrays a man who knows the benefit of an arm round the shoulder to help face down the demons we all have to confront in life.

It is by no means a perfect piece; in acknowledging that the original 2023 production was effectively written at ‘half-time’, Graham revisited the script earlier this year and added significant updates and changes to the conclusion to bring the story up to date prior to this tour. This has the effect of the second half feeling too disjointed, with successive tournament details that tested the patience of the audience without really contributing further to the story arc. These are minor quibbles for whilst it would indeed be a fairytale ending to see the team triumph at the conclusion, the wider point made by this piece is that England is a country more content with its self-image and place in the world following Southgate’s tenure.

Instead of a kind of revolution he masterminded a revolution of kind and when juxtaposed against the splits and enmity caused by the Brexit debate it is a production that illustrates the current ‘culture wars’ through the prism of ‘The Beautiful Game’.

Verdict:  A glorious play about ‘The Glory Game’ told with emotional intelligence, wit and heart.

Reviewer: Paul Wilcox

Reviewed: 1st June 2025

North West End UK Rating: