THE WORLD CUP FINAL 1966. To 15 January.
London
THE WORLD CUP FINAL 1966
by Carl Heap and Tom Morris
bac main theatre To 15 January 2005
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Sun 5.30pm Mat 22 December 5,8,12,15 Jan 1.30pm no performance 24-28 Dec, 1-3 Jan
TICKETS 020 7223 2223
Review: Timothy Ramsden 12 December
Battersea plays its winning team.Following Greek myth and Roman epic, Battersea comes closer home for this year's Christmas adventure. With football a religion for so many, it opens suitably in a present-day church where Mr and Mrs Hurst are having their daughter christened Geoff a neat summation of England's current chances of winning the World Cup.
Football and theatre have things in common too. Both reach their highest with someone in charge who can guide and release players' individual creativity while making them work as a team. In both, the key decision is choosing the best mix of individuals in the first place.
So Heap and Morris go back to England Manager Alf Ramsey's early days running Ipswich Town up through the divisions to championship level. Close observation, realising concealed potential, trusting his initial judgments were the qualities that did the trick.
Carl Heap's cast, if given less scope for theatricality than previous years' shows allowed, score where it matters most: in characterisation. Each, assertive or otherwise, has an individual flavour. Sometimes it relates to family. Mrs Charlton's very different manner to her two soccer-star-to-be sons, well-ordered, school-uniformed Bobby and wilder Jack. Nobby Stiles with his phone-home solos. Or Emily Mytton as little Geoff Hurst, the doubtful squad member who scored the goals.
There's a picture too of a society still formed in the post-war era, its mood caught in brief but telling moments. Black actor Jason Barnett plays on the contrast a line throws up with the White Ramsey, Mytton gives an unassertively grateful smile in her brief cameo as secretary to the England management - the sole female present, in her cracked spectacles, taking the minutes. Both point up how unswinging sixties life often was.
By dedicating the second act to the World Cup Final (plus shadow images of the semi, missed during the interval) the play pushes a lot of episodic material into a long first-half. The payoff comes with the detailed reconstruction of the great match's highlights, one cast as two teams in a sequence that must have been hell to rehearse but is theatrical heaven to watch.
Roger Hunt: Anthony Shuster
Gordon Banks: Derek Elroy
Jack Charlton: Edward Woodall
Geoff Hurst: Emily Mytton
Alan Ball: Ian Summers
Alf Ramsey: Jason Barnett
Jimmy Greaves/George Cohen: Jason Thorpe
Nobby Stiles: Niall Ashdown
Bobby Charlton: Roy Weskin
Martin Peters: Sasha Mitchell
Ray Wilson: Stephen Harper
Bobby Moore: Will Adamsdale
Director: Carl Heap
Designer: Ti Green
Lighting: Mark Dymmock
Composer/Musical Director: Joe Townsend
Choreographer: Darren Royston
Assistant director: Amy Leach
Assistant choreographers: James White, Nina Richmond Goring
2004-12-22 11:12:15