The late novelist Terry Pratchett once wrote, "The important thing about football is that it is not just about football." Any fan knows that a match can contain humanity in all its multitudes. Playwright James Graham pushed this idea to its breaking point in 2023 with 'Dear England,' a self-serious state-of-the-nation play about Gareth Southgate's tenure as England men's national team manager. Now adapted into a four-part BBC series, it somehow makes 'Ted Lasso' seem like a model of subtlety and restraint.
A Misguided Conception
Joseph Fiennes reprises his Olivier-nominated stage role, playing Southgate with a tortured intensity usually reserved for war veterans. When he takes the England job in 2016, he inherits a talented but discordant squad. He is less concerned with winning matches than with cultivating a vibe shift. ("My goal is to get people smiling again," he says.) As we know, his perestroika worked wonders: the "yes, more Mr Nice Guy" approach led to two international finals, a semi-final, and a quarter-final.
But 'Dear England' suffers both in conception and execution. The immediate problem is the dialogue—leaden and creaky, constantly reminding us that this is a story not about football, but about Our Great, Troubled Nation. While Southgate winces from tournament to tournament, turmoil looms in the background: multiple prime ministers resign, the Covid pandemic impacts the nation, and in one painfully earnest sequence, the aftermath of the Queen's death is depicted. A conversation between Southgate and Harry Kane about the Queen's history of service is a strange, mawkish inclusion, reminiscent of that much-mocked drawing of Paddington Bear walking the monarch to the gates of heaven.
Dismal Execution
The first three episodes are, frankly, dismal. The football sequences are an interminable drag, mostly taking the form of penalty shootouts shot expressionistically against black backdrops. In the final instalment, the pace picks up somewhat, benefiting from a more rousing blend of archive footage. However, the overall effect is underwhelming.
Almost everyone on screen is playing a famous person, with many likenesses so abstract as to be distracting—especially given the effort expended on Fiennes's Gareth-fication. Will Close, who won an Olivier Award for playing Harry Kane on stage, is replaced here by Will Antenbring, who fudges the look but nails the voice, though this Kane feels improbably perspicacious. Jodie Whittaker is recognisably human as sports psychologist Pippa Grange, serving mostly as a foil for the debilitatingly self-reproachful Fiennes.
A Story of Disappointment
One of the big issues 'Dear England' butts up against is that this England team never won a major tournament: this is a story of disappointment. Graham is left to forage for victory within defeat. An interesting comparison is the 2009 film 'The Damned United,' a rare example of a football drama that worked. In that film, Michael Sheen played manager Brian Clough, whose attempts to transform the culture at Leeds United end in disaster after 44 days. 'The Damned United' succeeded because it was a character study of a man both flawed and charismatic. Southgate—as depicted here—is neither. "Nice but boring" is how he exists in the public imagination, and this series does little to dispel that image.
Absent a compelling character, Graham's series (directed by Rupert Goold) takes aim at a nation, finding little to say. It's fair to say Graham may be spreading himself too thin: since 2022, he has written seven full-length plays, a couple of shorts, and four TV series, many similarly geared towards probing the state of modern England.
The Romance of Football
Here is the other thing about football: the romance of it is all in our heads. The prosaic reality is that matches are not won by bravery or personality, but by tactical minutiae and dumb luck. Sometimes the ball goes in the net, sometimes it doesn't. When Southgate's England lost the Euros final in 2024, it wasn't because of some ineffable English pathology, but because of tactics. If we lift the World Cup in a couple of months with a more pedigreed German manager and Southgate's hugs-and-smiles culture behind us, what will that tell us about the state of our nation? Very little—but at least it would make for a better TV show.
'Dear England' is on BBC One and iPlayer from Sunday 24 May at 9pm.
