The Red Lion
★★★★★ Back of the net!
Brunton Theatre: 11 May and touring
Review by Martin Gray
Rapture Theatre shoots, and scores, in a soccer drama by Patrick Marber that even non-sports fans will love.
Non-league football team the Red Lion is having a golden period – eight games in a row won under manager Jimmy Kidd. When a hugely talented new player, Jordan, joins the team, the only way is up.
Harry McMullen and John McArdle. Pic: Richard Campbell
Club legend turned kit-man John Yates takes the youngster under his wing, aiming to protect him from the sleazier side of the game. But Jordan has a secret…
Football as Greek tragedy, that’s what Patrick Marber’s pithy play – the length of a football match – provides. Nobody eats their children, true, but there is a sense that the young are being sacrificed for the glory of others.
In this case, it’s Jimmy who sees Jordan as a ticket to bigger things, putting him in conflict with born-again idealist John, who wants to preserve whatever purity survives in a game that’s become more business than beautiful.
As one whose interest in soccer begins and ends with Roy of the Rovers comic, I wasn’t sure a football play would be my thing. I needn’t have worried.
boyish earnestness
From the moment John McArdle’s John appears on the convincing changing room set, ironing the kit, to the final lines, The Red Lion grips like David Beckham to his mobile phone.
Brendan Charleson and John McArdle. Pic: Richard Campbell
McArdle brings a boyish earnestness and solidity to Yates – this is a man you can trust. And Harry McMullen’s outwardly naive Jordan badly needs a father figure to turn to as he begins to negotiate a world of scouts and agents, contracts and bungs.
He quickly realises that Brendan Charleson’s Jimmy, swaggering around in spivvy coat and Malcolm Allison fedora, isn’t a man to be taken at face value. Mind, it’s not like Jimmy is making out he’s Mr Clean, admitting ‘I’m a prickly prick of a person’.
He won’t ask Jordan to cheat, per se, just to be a ‘team player’ – fall on the ground when he’s been slightly jostled by another player so the ‘blind refs’ don’t miss the ‘narrative’, that kind of thing.
Director Michael Emans draws excellent performances out of his leading men. While this is a three-person play, it’s basically a series of two-handlers, as the characters talk ambition, family, loyalty, faith, truth and everything else that makes life worth living.
precision and passion
Marber’s script is filled with meaty speeches that, because they’re delivered with precision and passion by the players, nevertheless sound natural.
The Red Lion Harry McMullen. Pic Richard Campbell
McArdle and McMullen are excellent throughout – the latter superbly showing off his character’s footie skills without benefit of a ball – but it’s Charleson who really catches the eye as a man who’s not a villain, but naughty enough to be fascinating and fun. Charleson plays him with a Mephistophelean twinkle, but there’s real vulnerability behind the facade.
The Red Lion was at the Brunton for one night only, but if you missed it, there are plenty more chances as the production tours Scotland. Hop on the team bus and give this brilliantly produced play your support.
Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes (no interval)
The Brunton, Ladywell Way, Musselburgh EH21 6AA. Phone booking: 0131 665 2240.
Saturday 11 May 2019.
Run ended, show continues on tour.
| The Red Lion on tour: | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Thurs 16 May | Livingston Howden Park |
01506 777666 | Book online |
| Sat 18 May | Stirling Tolbooth |
01786 27 4000 | Book online |
| Mon 20 May | Motherwell Motherwell Theatre |
01698 403120 | Book online |
| Thurs 23 May | Greenock Beacon Arts Centre |
01475 723723 | Book online |
| Fri 24 May | Lanark Memorial Hall |
01555 667999 | Book online |
| Sat 25 May | Irvine Harbour Arts Centre |
01294 274059 | Book online |
| Sun 26 May | Giffnock Eastwood Park Theatre |
0141 577 4956 | Book online |
| Tue 28 May | East Kilbride Village Theatre |
01355 248669 | Book online |
| Fri 31 May | Stranraer Ryan Centre |
01387 253383 | Book online |
| Sat 1 June | Dumfries Theatre Royal |
01387 254209 | Book online |
| Fri 7 – Sat 8 June | St Andrews The Byre |
01334 475000 | Book online |
| Thurs 13 June | Falkirk FTH Theatre |
01324 506850 | Book online |
| Sat 15 June | Kirkcaldy Adam Smith Theatre |
01592 583302 | Book online |
| Tue 18 – Sat 22 June | Glasgow Theatre Royal |
0844 871 7647 | Book online |
Brendan Charleson. Pic: Richard Campbell
ENDS
