Based on the book by John Hart and Julie Welch

Written and Directed by Martin Murphy

Review by Marina Funcasta

Underbelly Bristo Square – The Dairy Room: Tickets

If the 27-club extended to football, John White could’ve spearheaded it. Struck by lightning in 1964, White left a team, a country, but most painfully, a 5-month-old son. Growing up to only ever know the ghost of his father, Rob White wrote a book published more than a decade ago where he and Juliet Welch piece together stories of his father, building up the man behind the myth. Now, sixty years after John’s passing, the show has premiered at the Fringe, riding the wave of the football x theatre cross over which has emerged in recent years; from The National’s Dear England to Alex Hll’s ‘Why I Stuck a Flare Up my Arse for England’, to the Traver Theatre’s Same Team, the symmetry between the pitch and the stage is becoming clear cut.

To be sure, White’s fate does retain something dramatically haunting at its core. A supremely talented underdog, emerging from the suburban streets of Edinburgh, passing the baton of life onto his son due to an unusual intrusion of nature, definitively has a Grecian ring to it. Told back and forth from the perspective of both men, Cal Newman embodies respective figures with ease, switching between with almost ping-pong-like agility. And this is no easy feat. Packed with lines and action, they play kids by like the tensest game of football.

The stakes are high, reminding the audience that the world John White belonged to is a tricky bridge to build, given the different atmosphere that shrouds football today. Not only is this due to externalities, but the fans’ energy is palpably distinct. This is probably where the play succeeds most. Discussing mental health in football has always been a conversation we have tucked away in forgotten boxes. It is only recently, in fact, that the pressures of the game have been coloured in for all their toxicity. Humanising both generations, Newman brings out their shared sensitivities, not shying away from providing the language through which Rob is able to express his grief. As poignant as it is poetic, this moment is one of the raw instances of the play, where the fears of failure and expectations for success inherent in professional sports fall under scrutiny.

This all being said, the sheer amount of information Newman manoeuvres through proves a disservice at times. Navigating the lines, themselves varyingly accented is sticky at best. Cramming the play with so many corners makes it feel like a disordered warm-up, fuelled with adrenaline but with an unclear climax. The play then becomes a sequence of hurdles Newman feels the need to jump over, reaching record time but losing some audience members on the way.

Even so, from someone who knows next to nothing about football, my investment in the play is all down to Newman’s charm and the script’s wit. As funny as it is buoyant, the cheeky, chappy character the Whites shared humanises both men in ways only theatre can. A tale more about grief than football; many may come in because of the sport, but most stay for the story.

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