The Game

Synopsis

Lancashire. 1913. Match Day! Blackton Rovers is in need of money. Owner, Austin Whitworth, sells his star centre forward - local football hero Jack Metherell - to a rival club on the eve of a crucial match that could see Rovers relegated. Will honest Jack do Austin’s bidding when asked to throw the match? Or will he put professional honour above loyalty to his old club? Meanwhile Austin’s daughter Elsie, and Jack, are in love - or so they think. But Jack still lives at home, firmly tied to his mother’s apron strings... From the halcyon days of professional football where players were working class heroes and people were supposed to know their place. A spirited comedy by the author of the classic Hobson’s Choice, that combines broad northern humour with the paspassion, pride, prejudice and principles of two football families.

Our Review:

23 September 2010

Almost Hobson’s Choice; well, it is quite a dilemma: Austin Whitworth will lose Blackton Rovers, unless he sells star player, Jack Metherell - and if they are beaten, by the team which now owns him. What’s a man to do, particularly when he discovers that footballer and feisty daughter Elsie (Catherine Kinsella) are courting.

Did I say feisty? One of the peculiarities of this 1913 play is how uncommonly rude all three children are to their father, rarely translating as affectionate. Similarly, Elsie is incredibly scathing about Culture, thus belittling Jack’s attempts to better himself. This is presumably intended as satire on the ways of the modern world, and it does resonate when successful, with shrewd comments about football, money and celebrity; values superseded, at a cost, and the setting up of false idols.

Action eschews the football field in favour of comfortable chambers chez Whitworth, the office a...

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