My husband and I went to England on a bucket list trip. In American parlance, a bucket list is a list of things to do before you die, and we’re getting pretty old. So in Mar-2025, we went to London to attend two Premier League games and Leeds vs Milwall. If we had a free night, we also intended to take in a live theater show.
By luck, on our last night in London, I picked up a free newspaper that mentioned Dear England was playing at the Royal National Theatre. I had read about the original play last year and knew that a film version was planned. So this was going to be like getting a movie preview!
Tickets were available that night, and for £79 each, I picked up great seats in the center of the theatre. I didn’t know what the play was about except that it involved Gareth Southgate.
I squirmed a little to see that the play was 2 hours and 50 minutes (including intermission). But it turned out that the production was amazing, it went incredibly fast, and frankly I would have liked to sit there to be entertained for another hour.
Experiencing the play
Dear England is going on a national tour, and if you enjoy theatre, the inventive staging alone is worth viewing. How do I know that? Because we ended up sitting next to a theater critic, laptop and all. He was pretty jazzed about the staging. Read Simon Button’s review for Saga Magazine here. I am so sad he didn’t mention the loud, laughing American football fans seated next to him. 😕
When booking, I had wondered why there was a lone aisle seat next to us. But actually, there seemed to be a number of solo men attending this play. There was also a boys youth team.
If you want your players to develop enthusiasm for England’s National Teams, this show is a great opportunity. The characters talk about their identity, where they are from and why they play.
The story is also about the expectation and pressure on England to win, even though other than Bobby Moore’s WC 1966, they have no history of success. Gareth himself comes to the team with a history of missing his PK in the semi-final of the 1996 Euros. Regardless, he is picked as England manager because in 2016, pretty much no one else wants the job.
Gareth changes things up by being his nice self. He forces the players to integrate rather than isolate in club cliques. He insists everyone call him Gareth instead of Boss. He also brings in a sports psychologist to help the team face its fears and transition to fearless.
As long as the team focuses on enjoying itself and playing out of love without expectations, they get better results. But once it becomes more about winning, they never quite make it, never quite hold up the trophy.
This year’s version of the original 2023 play is updated to show Gareth stepping down for Thomas Tuchel. Gareth leaves with the best record of any England manager since 1966.
Fact or fiction?
I haven’t followed England enough to know how much of the play is fact or fiction. It perhaps stereotypes Harry Kane as … well… always at a loss for words. But bits like that help provide much of the humor and charm of the play. The theatre program says the story is an original work with some actual quotes from interviews and public statements.
One thing that made me really love the production is that the actors portraying Gareth, Harry Kane, Harry Maguire, and Jordan Pickford look and sound so much like the real people, that I sometimes forgot they were acting. Most of the actors looked like actual footballers, even juggling on stage.
The staging itself is a major conveyance of the story. Revolving concentric circular stages portray movement on the field or the changing of scenes in the locker room while lockers are moved around. Game footage and photos are shown in the background. It is particularly funny when the players celebrate a goal or Pickford a great save. They come to the edge of the stage and freeze in the famous celebratory poses that we recognize and thus relive.
In conclusion
In the theatre program, Rory Smith observes:
“Being England Manager is an arduous, exacting, occasionally absurd and on some elemental level entirely doomed task.”
-Rory Smith
Surely Gareth’s results are more than enough to warrant this tribute play. Even though the England men haven’t had enough luck to bring home the trophy, the play mentions that the women succeed. We relive the ladies’ joyful It’s coming home dance on top of the Euro 2022 post-game media center table at Wembley.
Enamored of England, the show ends with the entire audience singing Sweet Caroline. How sweet is that.
Dear England is a wonderful production. How they will capture that vibrancy and transform it into a film, I have no idea. So see it live if you can. Add this theatrical performance to your bucket list.
9 Soccer Movie Mom Rating = 9
Resources:
- I attended this play on 2025-03-20 (London)
- Watch the Trailer for the 2023 National Theatre production
- Director: Rupert Goold
- Stars: Gwilym Lee (Gareth Southgate) , Ryan Whittle (Harry Kane) , Josh Barrow (Jordan Pickford) , Liz White (sports psychologist Pippa Grange)
