Playing at the cutting edge

The English Game

A social cricket side gathers in London for their usual Sunday game. An eclectic bunch, they're blighted by dog mess on the pitch, a petty thief stealing their cash, but most of all by what they see as the ills of society today. Outside Edge this is not.

Welcome to The English Game, a new state-of-the-nation play by human dramatist Richard Bean, which deals with the simmering tensions of diverging societal views, and how cricket can inspire love and loathing, but mainly love.

Will, played convincingly by former Surrey second XI player Robert East, is the club's heart. He brings all of the kit, his son plays, his dad is the side's last loyal supporter. But though seemingly benign, he has had enough of "every immigrant community that comes into this country ... We bend over backwards to encourage them to keep their lousy cultures ticking over". The social landscape is changing across Britain and Will comes to blows with Theo, a religious doctor who announces he is fleeing to France.

The team's newcomer Reg (a strong Fred Ridgeway) rails like a latter-day Jimmy Porter from John Osborne's Look Back in Anger. But the side don't trust him and reject his cringe worthy intolerance towards differences in society.

Through the play, cricket butts into life and vice versa and the characters move fluidly from discussing a wicket to a failed marriage and back to another wicket. There is so much cricket involved - indeed the one set is staged around a boundary - and some in-jokes about Andrew Flintoff and Steve Waugh, not to mention a typical obsession with the weather, that a non-cricket follower may find it a touch de trop, but would cricket fans who were not necessarily theatre fans enjoy it?

They would certainly appreciate the discussions about the spirit of the game, while struggling to find an error with the kit or the script. Bean, a social cricketer himself, has nailed the minor details (someone uses golf spikes instead of cricket ones; only a few engage in warm-ups). Overall it is a warm and accurate portrayal of cricket life, although the featured game itself lacks tension.

The characters are easily identifiable in most teams and they portray the stark reality of the grunt of life, which they confront using the twin armoury of cricket (though the game can turn on them and their bodies) and humour - however dark in places - which relieves the gloom. An intimate auditorium helped.

The title deliberately misleads the audience into expecting manicured village greens and polite banter. But it seems, in this Surrey theatre at least, that the frequent swearing and unflinching portrayal of attitudes to immigration, racism and militant feminism (in these post-modern times the wives have refused to make the teas) were not to every watcher's taste or expectation.

"Ghastly, ghastly" one seasoned theatre-goer proclaimed, "Dreadful" said another, the pair perhaps having mistakenly hoped for some escapism, which is not what a Bean play offers. The vast majority of the audience, however, clearly enjoyed the undeniable wit of the script and the polished acting of the deliberately all-male cast (reflecting the changed social landscape at many clubs, where women are no longer so integral). The script could have been shaved a fraction but was strongly written and does well to avoid the obvious trap of cliché.

While the play provides a snapshot of reality in both cricket and politics; no obvious solution is offered. Perhaps this is the point, a covert lament on the inexplicable futility of how even cricket - that supposed untouchable sanctuary from brutal modern life - can't escape today's world. What the future holds politically is also anyone's guess.