Review: The Game at Liverpool Playhouse

by Richard Buxton. Published Thu 23 Sep 2010 15:23, Last updated: 2010-09-24

Corruption, class divide and a star player transferred to make ends meet as a top-flight club battle against relegation and insolvency.

Sound familiar?

Harold Brighouse's play 'The Game' could have easily been set in 2010 as it is in 1913 and returned to Liverpool over 96 years after it was first shown at the city's Playhouse theatre.

Lancashire club Blackton Rovers go into the final day of the season needing a win to safeguard their First Division status, against their nearest rivals no less, having sold the talismanic Jack Metherell to them against his wishes the night previous.

Knowing defeat will condemn both himself and the club to financial ruin, Blackton manager Austin Whitworth (Barrie Rutter) resorts to desperate measure as he tries to convince his former striker to do one last favour for his former employers.

But upright Metherell (Phil Rowson) refuses to compromise his morals despite his eagerness to seek Austin's permission to marry his daughter Elsie (Catherine Kinsella).

Liz Carney and Jos Vantyler enjoy quippy cameos as Austin's other children Florence and Leo, as does John Branwell as his London-centric brother Edmund as the harsh realities of football as a business, rather than a pasttime, start to hit home to the Whitworths.

However it is former Coronation Street star Wendi Peters who steals the show as Metherell's brazen mother who fiercely opposes the notion of her son shedding his humble working class roots in favour of marrying a kept woman.

After high drama and humour throughout, the ending was something of an anti-climax but still worthwhile, whilst '100 Years of Football - What's Changed?' provides the perfect precursor for diehard football fanatics to reminisce about an age when football belonged to the fans.


'The Game' runs until Saturday 25 September 2010.

For more information, visit www.everymanplayhouse.com/Show/The_Game/214/Info.aspx

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