Substack launch: Through the lines

Gareth Southgate and his England team have provided plenty of drama over the past seven years. Now they have become stars on a different stage in a show that really gets under the skin of football fandom and national pride. Here is a short extract from a long read, the first offering from my free bi-weekly newsletter about arts and culture. Get it here.

Gareth Southgate and his England team have provided plenty of drama over the past seven years. Now they have become stars on a different stage in a show that really gets under the skin of football fandom and national pride.

[body] Early into James Graham’s play Dear England, affable Gareth Southgate (Joseph Fiennes) meets his new coaching staff after reluctantly answering the SOS to be caretaker manager. He ambles into the room with a Partridge-like grin and a bag of muffins. This hasn’t been billed as a comedy but I’m struck by the tone.

Is this going to be a slapstick take on this barmy land and our complex relationship with football/failure? Comic relief with a side order of self-deprecation? That’s a big part of it judging by the revolving cast of caricatures, anyone from the ghosts of miseries past (Graham Taylor, Fabio Capello, Sam Allardyce) to the current crop of mimicked stars (those poor Harrys).

However, as the story moves on from tournament to tournament the plot thickens. We see Southgate try to change the culture around the international team, meeting sizeable resistance both internally and in dark corners of the terraces and internet.

The crestfallen penalty misser from Euro 1996 went on to manage Middlesborough for several years (until relegation) before taking important roles in FA youth development and leading the U21s into Euro 2015. So Southgate was no patsy – experienced in the bitter lows of sport, aware of the unrealistic demands of the fan base, familiar with St George’s Park and the whims of the FA.

But even he probably underestimated the scope of the task. A task that appears very clear on the surface: just win us a bloody cup with this Golden Generation. To get there he would have to perform open-heart surgery on the squad and reconnect them to the supporters.

But why a play and why now, when we haven’t won anything? The answer lies in the scale and complexity of the challenge as England manager. How the fortunes of the team determine so many people’s feelings about their country and themselves. This is psychodrama at the extremes of human emotion, ripe for adaptation.

Read the full piece in the first dispatch of my newsletter Bluejeans & Moonbeams.

Crash and burn

Covering three generations of family history over 164 years, The Lehman Trilogy is an epic story of vaulting ambition and mounting greed that’s conquered theatres from the Southbank to Broadway since premiering in 2018.

I had heard great things about Es Devlin’s stage design, in particular – pairing a rotating, open-office construction (all glass panels, filing boxes and little else) with a panoramic Luke Halls video projection of skylines and more behind. So I picked up a reasonably priced ticket for the current run at the Gillian Lynne Theatre.

Most of us are familiar with Lehman Brothers, once the fourth biggest bank in the US and whose collapse was integral to the 2008 financial crash. I wanted to know how we got there, and indeed how the Lehmans came to New York from Bavaria via the plantations of Alabama. So if you too are up for a dynamic history lesson with a side order of sibling rivalry then get yourself down there before June … and buckle up.

Clocking in at more than three hours, the production features a three-man cast of Nigel Lindsay (Broken Glass, The Pillowman, Four Lions), Michael Balogun (Macbeth, Barbershop Chronicles, Blue/Orange) and Hadley Fraser (Les Misérables, City of Angels, The Deep Blue Sea) who excel at playing umpteen characters in the most chameleonic and rapid-fire fashion, from stubborn or combative board types to flirtatious dames and petulant children.

Following the company’s evolution as traders in fabrics, raw cotton, coffee, cash then stocks and shares feels logical and astonishing at the same time. (We should probably add human beings to that list, says Professor Sarah Churchwell, though the play is rather silent on the matter.) The family managed, in different ways, to fulfil, flog and repackage the American Dream. One that had a familiar gleam, a sure thing-ness and insatiability about it every time.

Looking into their crystal ball, they said you too can make it, trust me, but act now or miss out. Lehman gets rich in the process and as a result, they only want to get richer while the get-rich philosophy in a capitalist society brings more fresh fish to the trawler. But there’s only one problem as Lindsay points out while in narrator mode: “What happens if they stop believing?”

Sam Mendes’ direction instills poise at certain moments and frenzy at others. I like the use of magic marker scrawlings on the glass panels to signify the changing name and focus of the company, minimising the need for too many props or complex set changes, which would break the momentum. However, more pauses to catch our breathe would have been welcomed. ⁣Make no mistake, this production is relentless and always moving.

The pianist accompanying the actors with Nick Powell’s score, Erika Gundesen, was delightful and even partook in a little comedy where the story touches on one of the brothers’ efforts to learn the instrument in a very plodding manner. It’s a rights of passage, right. Together with the sound design elements, Powell’s score manages to both evoke the world of period drama and convey that sense of dark clouds overhead. There is a foreboding in the air.

I had a fidgety, flustered woman beside me who kept complaining about all the exposition in the script, questioning the importance of relaying events in such a play-by-play manner. Clearly, she didn’t know what she was getting into. ⁣Check the running time. “Epic” is unofficially in the title.

That said, playwright Ben Power’s adaptation of the Stefano Massini novel could do with an edit. At times, it felt more like listening to an in-depth podcast series than watching a play. On the flip side, the lengthy duration will give you more opportunities to marvel at the actors – their energy, endurance and elasticity. And how the stage, the “fourth dancer” as Devlin calls it, is constructed in a minimalist way to let them shine in each of their many roles from different perspectives.

Tickets (closes 20 May)

An awkward affair

Amid all the awkward, evasive and stilted exchanges between Nick (Joe Alywn) and Frances (Alison Oiver) in the recent TV adaptation of Conversations with Friends, this banter was like a life preserver thrown out to us. Imagine if they’d adopted this tone all the way through…

It’s not a criticism of the acting but I remember these characters being more interesting in the book. Ennui plays better on the page, as does awkwardness, and we ask less of the dialogue there. Their interiority is richer. Even the more languorous moments can be telling, in a subtle and nuanced manner, if we let our imagination engage.

Writing for the Evening Standard, Phoebe Luckhurst pinpoints what’s lost in adaptation: “Frances is a passive, malleable drip of a girl … at times so passive, such a spectator, she almost disappears off the screen — and Nick is a charisma vacuum. In the book, this is the point: fiction’s best characters are the introspective introverts, the watchful observers who dissect reality for us. But on screen, it means Frances and Nick are constantly outshone, upstaged — to the extent that scenes with just the pair of them can drag.”

The line that really spoke to me when I read Sally Rooney’s novel is this closing thought from the author as narrator: “You live through certain things before you understand them. You can’t always take the analytical position.” It cuts to the core of Frances and how she is so desperate to feel sure of herself, to assert herself as a writer, an adult, a woman.

Capitalism, class and power play into these concerns and the book does a better job of exploring them in the context of her relationship with Nick. How he loans Frances money when dad’s allowance stops. And when she asks Nick to hit her, almost as punishment, after a one-night stand with a guy on a dating app.

Frances has her struggles with mental health, low self-esteem, is quick to self-harm and is diagnosed with endometriosis. She’s going through a lot. But when it comes to Nick, it’s hard to sympathise too much with someone who wants someone else’s husband all to herself and uses her best friend to make him jealous. Here, Alison Oliver does a good job of wringing maximum solipsism out of Frances.

It took a while to empathise with Nick’s struggles, let alone care about them. Anyone can feel worthless or rudderless at some point in their lives, even handsome people. But this revelation felt more out of character than in the book. Lots of people think Alwyn portrayed him perfectly. Maybe he did and I’m asking too much of a depiction on screen. Both are men of few words, I’ll give them that.

nick is dull, emotionless, awkward, and depressed. that’s what he’s supposed to be. joe alwyn portrayed him perfectly https://t.co/QEBnIeG8dU

— abdullah (@abdullahosmn) May 15, 2022

“jOe alWyN is bOriNg aS niCk” DID YOU EVEN READ THE BOOK? Nick has the personality of unseasoned tofu

— laura🏹🪩 swifthaim nation (@taymyepiphany) May 16, 2022

TV Nick does give us some LOL moments though, as if he’s dialing up the “dull” and “emotionless” parts. The way he acknowledges Frances’ suggestion that they talk about their forbidden tryst by grunting “yeah” – I had to run that back 😂 The Terminator had more chat and personality. PS, what’s up with that accent?

When his wife Melissa (Jemima Kirke) has a heart-to-heart/showdown with Frances, her description of him as “pathologically passive” was such an acerbic but appropriate put-down. Kirke delivered it with just the right blend of exasperation, frustration and disdain.

In the book, however, Melissa writes a carefully constructed email to Frances and uses the description “pathologically submissive” – a curious amendment. You might say the two are analogous but for me, one is more extreme than the other. And that does shift their intimacy into a slightly different territory.

Frances tells Nick he is such as appealing “love object” because he is so “curiously passive”, which is not the impression we get in the show. She elaborates: “I knew I would have to be the one to kiss you. And that you would never kiss me, which made me feel vulnerable. But I also felt this terrible power, like, you’re going to let me kiss you, what else will you let me do? It was sort of intoxicating. I couldn’t decide if I had complete control over you or no control at all.'“ I suppose this aspect of their affair, and what they mean to each other in it, is open to interpretation and could have been explored further.

One comment piece argued that the show has merit because it offers a more nuanced portrayal of infidelity on screen, one that’s rooted in unresolved feelings, a desperate need for validation and to be desired, and not the caricature of promiscuity, revenge or pure selfishness we’re used to.

Polyamory is a big talking point at the moment. A challenge to the tradition of monogamy as our best chance of a happy relationship. The “epitome”, as Rooney has described it. In that context, the show is interesting.

When they kiss, you can feel how much Frances and Nick need one another. It’s effusive, overwhelming, liberating, as if their souls are ignited and their bodies must follow. And nothing else matters. Their anxious minds can switch off. Otherwise, their dynamic is flat on TV. And the self-absorption is fatiguing, as her best friend and former girlfriend Bobbi (Sasha Lane) tells Frances.

What did you think of it? How did it compare to the book?

Conversations with Friends is on BBC One and streamable on BBC iPlayer.

Goldfish Bowl – new play, new feel

How accessible is theatre in 2018, particularly to young people in poorer parts of the UK? The West End premium is still a problem and there are never enough offers like this to go around. Meanwhile, the Tate has decided to open all art exhibitions to 16-25s for just £5, a strategy that other major venues should follow.

It’s hard to imagine under-18s in the UK spending what little pocket change they have on a ticket to a new play when they can find what they like online, usually for little or nothing. But this issue goes deeper than cost.

It’s a two-part problem: content and delivery. We need more commissioned voices out there that can directly and very candidly speak of the times we are living in, using (and often subverting) the language and imagery of those times. This is particularly so for those from minority backgrounds. Never underestimate the power of seeing and hearing yourself on stage/screen.

Talawa has been a vital conduit in that regard, and there are occasional breakthroughs like the phenomenally successful Barbershop Chronicles, the vision of Inua Ellams and the product of years of persistent hustle. But these examples stand out because there are so few like them.

Which brings me to Goldfish Bowl, currently running at Battersea Arts Centre for the bargain price of around £10. This is a Paper Birds production starring former Young People’s Laureate Caleb Femi and featuring fellow Sxwks collective member Lex Amor together with the signature visuals of Olivia Twist.

It has been a work in progress for more than two years now, with previous performances happening at the Roundhouse and the Albany. Not many theatre companies would nurture a production with this much patience and love. Here’s a little taste.

I have met Femi a few times while working on this and this for social enterprise Soul Labels. He has been exploring his heritage for several years and pondering what it means to be British through work such as Children of the Narm and this Heathrow installation.

But I didn’t know how much trauma he had experienced between the early years in Nigeria and growing up on a north Peckham estate. Those “dark forces” at play. The car accidents, the fights, the gang violence… Last night he described Goldfish Bowl as his origin story – not how he became a superhero but how he became an English teacher. Is there a difference?  

That small theatre was like a portal for the audience. Harnessing very minimal yet evocative set design – a dangling mic, a telephone, a heart monitor made of strip lighting, a cracked mirror backdrop, a hospital gown and a copy of Frankenstein – Femi eased his way into the story through a serious of seemingly off-the-cuff conversations with Amor. It was like two mates ribbing each other in the pub; so playful, in fact, that we were almost blindsided by some of the darker moments to come.

Goldfish Bowl is a whirl, constantly shifting its focal point, tone and topic. The structure was fragmented and the energy off-kilter, which kept you on alert. One moment Femi would be playing schoolyard games and trawling 90’s pop culture with Amor, the next they would be trading bars over a grime beat, or simulating a classroom situation while addressing the audience.

Femi’s transition from conversation to spoken word performance was subtle and moving, particularly when paired with Twist’s animated etchings of the faces and places of his youth. He would turn tender memories of past loves and lost friends into poignant verse, then offer incisive commentary on topics such as the education system and life in Britain as the child of immigrants. This freeform, freestyle approach felt like the only way to tell his nuanced tale – more visceral than film, for intimate than radio. In the open.

In the context of current headlines – the escalation in knife crime, drill music and the demonisation of young black men – Goldfish Bowl resonates even more deeply. But rather than dwell on these issues, which often come to define how others view a whole demographic, this play serves as a reminder that how you respond to certain experiences is more important than the experiences themselves in determining who you become.

Femi was shot aged just 17, something he has described as “a random altercation" and "being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person". Speaking to the Independent, he reframed the discussion on gang violence: “You have a group of friends – they’re just friends, your friends. You stick with them. And the more you stick with them, the more you’re associated with your friends. You grow up not really knowing you’re ‘a gang’ – not in the way it’s usually portrayed. If someone troubles your friend, if someone stabs your friend, you’re going to get involved. It happens like that. And before you know it, you’re swept away.” 

That day was his wake-up call. As he sits in the hospital bed holding Frankenstein in both hands, like a prayer book offering salvation, he asks, “What is a poem?”  In that moment, we understand the power of literature as a means of self-realisation, and the potential of the writer as not only a mythologist but a maker of meaning.

You may not have been born to Nigeria, called Peckham your “endz”, smelt so much of home in a head of hair, made your own entertainment on a council estate, lost “fam” or stared death in the face. But you will recognise what it feels like to stumble, to find your place and maybe, just maybe, to have a dream.     

Goldfish Bowl takes you there, as great art should. It’s universal, like a heart that beats for life. And definatly so.

Goldfish Bowl is running at Battersea Arts Centre until 16 June.