Maggi and I set off early to go to see Dear England at The National Theatre. We took the tube at 5:30 and so became entangled with the commuter rush particularly when we travelled beween Baker Street and Waterloo.
We arrived at 6:35 for the 7:30 performance and bought ourselves a drink. The place seemed basically deserted. The bars had no patrons and the staff seemed to just hang around chatting to each other. We sat down and ate the sandwich, apple etc that we had brought for our evening meal which I guessed would be much better than buying some snack that we might buy in the theatre.
We took our seats and sat down to wait for the production to begin. The stage setting was made up of a circular platform with two circles of lights, one around the base of the platform and the other hovering above. The stage props remained pretty minimal throughout the production consisting of boxes/doors on which the England shirts were hung and ironed framed chairs.
I don’t know how true to life the story of Dear England is to the history of Gareth Southgate’s tenure as England manager, but it does follow the chronology of England’s achievements or lack of at all the tournaments at which he coached the team.
Gareth tries to change things from the work of previous managers and introduces a female psychologist to the team set up. Between them the pair introduce many ideas that we should all take into consideration:
- Face our fears – by discussing them
- Focus on the successes even when they can at first feel like failures
- Support each other as a team
The performances by Gwilym Lee as Southgate and Liz White as Pippa Grange can only be described as outstanding while all the other members of the cast played their part. Harry Kane, played by Ryan Whittle brought humour to the play.
Maggi and I both enjoyed the evening’s entertainment and would thoroughly recommend the play to anyone.