A young girl, growing up in the Nineties. She loves football - no, not just loves it, but lives it. She is a staunch Manchester United supporter and as the play suggests, the 1990s (especially 1999) were a fabulous time for the club.
Her ageing Grandma whom she regularly visits has sage words for her and she listens to them, hanging on to her every word. She has a good friend at school, who like her in many ways has to repress his true feelings and pretend to be something he isn't. For him, he remains in the closet since being a gay school kid at that time was not only unheard of it would have gained him untold amounts of ridicule. And for her, she has ballet lessons and has to wear a skirt, when all she really wanted to do was join a football team and play the game that she was born to be a part of.
I have to admit that at this point in the narrative I was very confused. I was a teenager in the 1980s, and at my school there were two homosexual lads. Yes, they came in for ridicule but this was always good-natured. We all knew the score and they were welcomed then to be a part of the school just as much as anyone else. The girls loved them and befriended them as if they were sisters, and we simply 'took the Mickey!'. Further, my school had a girls' football team, and they went playing matching with other school teams from around the country. If I am honest it was the boys who were excluded because we were not able to play hockey or rounders - those were girls only sports! I did not attend a Grammar School or 'posh school' in any way. So I was at odds with what the play was telling me.
Further I did not understand several things shown to me during the course of this play. I did not understand the need for two characters from the Victorian era joining in with the present day narrative, nor their omnipresence. I did not understand the need for four cloths strung over a lighting bar, two either side of and partially obscuring a large screen. I did not understand why they chose to use beer and bottle crates for seats when chairs would have been better. I also didn't understand the need for the FOH Manager to be 'in character' throughout treating all the audience as naughty school children, shouting his way around the theatre. It was neither funny nor necessary, in fact it felt rather awkward. Especially since his character's on-stage appearance was miniscule and absolutely not a part of the narrative.
The play started with images being shown on the large screen of Manchester, Old Trafford, the football ground etc - all vintage photos of a bygone era. I am uncertain whether or not the house lights should still have been on at this point, but they were. Through direct soliloquy and narration to the audience and interspersed with both pre-recorded music and live song, this was primarily a paean to Manchester United. The play did also nicely tie in other themes too such as the need to 'breathe' through life. The most inspiring message taken from the play was that in a relationship sometimes you are breathing together, in tune with each other; and if something goes wrong, it is possible for your partner to breathe for you. These more thoughtful sections of the play were the most successful. The individual scenes however lacked cohesion and the overall story-line was tenuous, and if, like me, you haven't a clue about football nor have any interest in the sport, it is a little football-heavy, especially the first act. In fact, taking the title of the play as three separate events, then act 1 is Old Trafford, and act 2 split between Amelia's first love (Jac) and her decision to be herself.
Hannah Rose Hughes was our protagonist Amelia. Highly energetic, hugely passionate, but she seemed to be performing in a large scale Musical rather than a small fringe theatre venue. Ian Kay was a lovely if not stereotypical slightly camp Davey, and Kyle Fisher provided Amelia with the love interest, as Jac, her first love whom she met and lived with at university. Sadly this evening I was having some level of difficulty understanding Fisher's soliloquies as he wasn't enunciating fully. The most real character on stage this evening was Nanna, played by Debra Speakman, nicely placing her naturalistic vocals. and providing a nice trunk from which the younger branches of this production could spring.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 17/9/18
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