Reviews

The Nap (Sheffield Crucible)

Jack O’Connell stars in Richard Bean’s new play about snooker

"It’s not the Crucible, is it?" moans Mark Addy‘s Bobby Spokes, running his hand along the baize of a full-size table in a run-down snooker room. The walls are stained, the chairs are wonky, but the table itself is pristine – worthy of the World Championship that’s held, every year, in this very theatre, "the cathedral of snooker." This year, his son Dylan (Jack O’Connell) has made the draw.

Richard Bean, line for line Britain’s funniest playwright, turns a sporting tale into a comic caper. Ranked 107 in the world, Dylan gets a visit from the police pre-tournament, warning him about match fixing. Having depended on the sponsorship of local gangster Waxy Chuff (Louise Gold) – a transgender woman with a bionic arm and a tendency to muddle words – Dylan has a dilemma when she asks him to throw a frame – not least because everything is more complicated than it seems.

In snooker, the nap is the way the surface plays with or against the grain. Shooting one way is smooth; the other, deviates – a neat metaphor for crookedness and for class. Snooker, says Bobby, "is a way for working class lads who were shit at school to make some money." As in life, a lot depends on the breaks.

Bean wrings all the beauty out of the sport. Watching Dylan setting up, towelling down his cue, ironing out the baize, you understand the respect in the game. It’s the same when you watch it played – for real – by ex-pro John Astley. As he works round the table, the whole room holds its breath. It’s hoped The Nap might bring new audiences to the theatre. Well, it might make the odd snooker fan too.

Snooker’s a game of mistakes. You take ages to build up a break, patiently lining up each shot, one after the next, only to blow the frame with one miss. The same goes for Dylan. Integrity is lost in a moment, never recovered.

Credibility too though, and Bean gets carried away with his comedy. Having threaded Dylan and Bobby into Sheffield and snooker so carefully, his transgender terminator tips the scales. There’s no coming back from that and, after a meticulous build-up, The Nap plays out rather sloppily.

But you can hardly begrudge its lurch to the ludicrous. The Nap is bloody funny – sometimes sharp, sometimes broad. It wants to deliver a good night out and, doubly important, it’s made for its audience, with local colour and in-jokes. We get behind Dylan because he’s a local lad.

O’Connell’s not far off himself – Derby-born – and, even if he struggles to own the huge Crucible stage, you root for his rangy, restless underdog. It’s impossible not to give in to Richard Wilson‘s cast. Addy is fantastic as his roguish father, his wit honed at the pub table, Gold brings a husky menace to Waxy Chuff and Ralf Little is winning as Dylan’s Flash Harry manager. Bean’s play overstretches itself going for colour – but, well, that’s snooker.

The Nap runs at Sheffield Crucible until the 2nd April.