The Ashes

Synopsis

It's 1932 and the England cricket team are smarting from their Ashes defeat inflicted largely by Aussie batsman Donald Bradman. Something radical is needed to avoid a repeat of the humiliation they have suffered and a new line of bowling attack is devised for the 1932 tour of Australia. - Bodyline. Nottinghamshire miner and cricketer Harold Larwood is instructed to bowl "leg theory", hurling the ball at the batsman rather than the wicket. Faced with a ball rearing towards his body, or face, at up to 90mph, the batsman can only defend himself by fending off the delivery. Bradman's average is slashed but the technique soon becomes one of the most controversial tactics ever seen on a sports field. Relations not only between the teams, but the two countries themselves are strained to breaking point.

Our Review:

8 September 2011

Cricket lovers aside, an evening in the theatre devoted to the intricacies of the controversial “bodyline” test match way back in the 1930s ought to make for a pretty dull night out.

So writer Michael Pinchbeck and director Giles Croft, who commissioned this work for the Playhouse in celebration of one of the county’s local heroes, deserve warm congratulations for crafting a truly engrossing drama out of what for most people remains a complicated and inaccessible sport.

Theatregoers worried by the play’s cricketing theme can rest assured that they won’t need an encyclopaedic knowledge of the game or anything like it to enjoy the very human story behind this still controversial slice of our sporting history.  

In 1932 England needed to come up with a radical new set of tactics to take on the Australians, and in particular their legendary batsman Donald Bradman who had inflicted a humiliating defeat against us in the previo...

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