Tony Graham’s touching adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s story about a forgotten Chelsea football legend is back at the Unicorn theatre. With the same cast that won the hearts of even rival football fans four years ago, it’s the tale of an old man recalling a brief career at the club – cut short by World War II.
But it’s also the tale of his grandson, who is going for a trial at Stamford Bridge and struggles to credit the old man he calls Uncle Billy.
Even if you have no love of football and still less of Roman Abramovich’s pet club, have no fear: this being a Michael Morpurgo story it’s much more about emotional bonds than it is about inflated egos kicking around inflated leather. And like other Morpurgo stories, it’s rooted in World War I, with Billy’s own father dying from the effects of mustard gas.
Billy’s journey then takes him from scoring at Stamford Bridge to serving in North Africa, becoming a POW in Italy, to witnessing the horror of liberating Auschwitz – before winding up supping cheap lager on a park bench.
Although the ending is too easy, this is an absorbingly emotional yarn, rooted by Graham in feisty dialogue. Graham’s production also sticks to two actors and deftly weaves together themes of age and youth, reconciling past and present.
Adam Wiltshire’s set of a mangy London park is strikingly lit by Phil Clarke and Sam Donovan is hugely versatile as the young lad and sundry other characters. Donovan also has great rapport with Dudley Sutton, who gives a thoroughly engaging performance as the older man revivified by memories of youth. It’s enough to make you root for Chelsea.