JUMPERS FOR GOALPOSTS

The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School’s Directors’ Festival 2022 is brought to a triumphant close with two very contrasting plays. Jumpers For Goalposts, written by Tom Wells, is a cheerfully optimistic comedy that sketches vivid portraits of the diverse members of a wholly incompetent five-a-side football team. In stark contrast, Girl In The Machine, by Stef Smith, is a darkly pessimistic tragedy that tells of a very successful couple whose marriage is under threat. These plays differ greatly, yet at heart they ask similar questions about just what it is that makes us human.

Jumpers For Goalposts, directed with pace and vitality by Becks Granger, is set in the changing room of five-a-side football team Barely Athletic, who are struggling near the bottom of Hull’s LGBTQ+ pub league. The team consists of three gays, a lesbian and a token straight male, each with different reasons for playing football, but all united by friendship. This is an ensemble piece that is blessed with five excellent performances from its young cast. It left me wondering if amateur sport might not be far more important than the winner takes all, money-obsessed professional stuff.

Joe (Peter Burley) is the token straight, a man who has loved and lost, and for whom Barely Athletic offers respite from depression. Not gifted with mobility – in another life Joe admits he ‘would have been a bollard’ – he is inevitably put in goal with the somewhat desperate instruction to ‘spread your arms out and think wide thoughts’. Peter Burley portrays him as a simple soul with hidden depths. When urging a teammate to take his chances in a relationship Joe gives a very moving speech that reveals he has known what it is to be passionately in love – a moment that packs a seriously powerful emotional punch.

Geoff (Max Guest) is a busker who dreams of one day performing on a big stage. He has some way to go, as currently his performances on the street are likely to bring little reward: ‘£1.37… and a Chewit.’ Max Guest depicts an outwardly cheerful chap whose silly bobble hat hides scars, both of the real and the metaphorical kind. If stardom eludes Geoff, he nevertheless proves to be a successful matchmaker, contriving to bring two cripplingly shy teammates together. They are Danny (Josh Penrose), and Luke (Ajani Cabey) They do finally manage a first, tentative kiss, in a scene of real tenderness. Viv, played with infectious verve and energy by Evie Hargreaves, is the team’s would-be motivator, doomed to disappointment. Throughout the play the various shifts in mood, from laugh-out-loud comedy to moments of quiet gentleness, are handled extremely well.

Barely Athletic may not have trophies, but they have companionship, mutual support and a sense of fun. They represent all of us who have never stood on the top step of a podium, but who have discovered that ‘success’ and ‘winning’ are not necessarily synonymous. Jumpers For Goalposts is a joyous, life-affirming show.

★★★★☆

GIRL IN THE MACHINE

Have you ever become frustrated because your partner appears to be giving more attention to their mobile phone than to you? Girl In The Machine, directed by Ellie Jay Stevens, tells of a woman who literally gives her life over to a new technology, leaving her partner feeling he has become ‘an afterthought’, and the consequences are chilling. Owen (Joe Edgar) is a hospital nurse married to Polly (Chiara Lari), a successful lawyer. They are very much in love – a neighbour has complained of their ‘excessive adult noises’ – but there is a pervading sense of danger, the roots of which may lie in their differences. Owen is a pragmatist, willing to accept life’s essential messiness in much the same way that he copes with the blood and bed pans that he faces at work. “I want to bleed ” he cries. Polly by contrast is an idealist, striving always for perfection, and prone to stress. They speak of plans to have a child, but there are issues relating to his relatively low salary and her high ambitions that are yet to be resolved. That’s a situation that many contemporary couples could relate to, but Girl In The Machine is set in the near future, where advances in digital technology create new opportunities, and new dilemmas.  Owen brings home a new device borrowed from work;  it’s a Black Box, an aid for relaxation.  The machine has a personality, a “Voice” (Alex Crook), and in Hugo Dodsworth’s clever set design we see it/him projected onto transparent gauze screens. Their contrasting reactions to the machine have a profound impact on Owen and Polly’s relationship, throwing their differences into stark relief.

Joe Edgar and Chiara Lari vividly depict their characters’  growing divisions, yet they also ensure that we never lose sight of them as a loving couple. We want their marriage to succeed; we know that it is doomed.

This is a play that raises important questions about our relationship with technology. It powerfully makes the point that in turning to technology to make our lives easier we have succeeded in making our lives more complicated. At times perhaps Girl In The Machine sags a little under the weight of its own ideas, but it certainly packs a lot into a thought-provoking hour.

★★★★☆  Mike Whitton  14th May