Southwark Playhouse – until 4 May 2024
Reviewed by Claire Roderick
5*****
While the actual matches should be the main focus of Remembering England’s run in 2020’s European Championship, the enduring images will always be crowds storming the gates at Wembley and BumFlare Man. Alex Hill’s debut play imagines what drove the man to do this (besides alcohol or drugs) and skilfully presents a story of grief, loneliness and the desperate need to belong in 60 minutes of barnstorming writing and performance.
The play begins with a boisterous and jubilant bang, football chants and songs getting the audience joining in and laughing before the flare is lit. After a radio interview where he gives a flippant reply to the question “Why?”, Billy expands on what led to his infamous act. Hill takes the audience on a breakneck journey through Billy’s life, from kickabouts in the park with best friend Adam and their first trip to watch their team play. The love and innocent joy that this friendship and shared pleasure in football becomes strained as they grow up and encounter Wine Gum and his mates in the pub. The boys’ indoctrination into Wine Gum’s firm and introduction to heavy drinking and drugs leads to a huge shift in tone from childhood euphoria to brutality as Billy’s accounts of matches become monosyllabic chants of excess and violence. As Billy is swept along by this intoxicating feeling of belonging, Adam becomes an increasingly distant figure – their traditional matchday breakfast ritual stops, and Adam is spending more quality time with Billy’s girlfriend than he is. Hill tackles male friendship and mental health brilliantly, with Billy’s frustrated and confused comments about Adam effortlessly demonstrating the need to communicate honestly. Much like England’s time at Euro 2020, Hill’s play drives the audience through expectation, high energy excitement and then quiet despair as Billy finally sees his “mates” in their true light and realises, too late, what he has lost.
Adam Hill ‘s writing is poetic, funny and incisive, and he gives an intoxicating performance – always reminding us of the lost boy beneath the macho bravado with flashes of gentleness amongst the laddish nonsense. Sean Turner’s excellent direction and Hill’s dynamic performance create a seamless production that you simply can’t look away from.
A brilliant show that will thrill not just football fans. A fantastic debut – Hill is a name to look out for in the future.