MARIA DUARTE is swept along by the cocky self-belief of a ping-pong hustler in a surprisingly violent drama
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A play of two halves
The Red Lion is an acute examination of the conflict in football between old and new values, says LYNNE WALSH
STEVE ANDREW recommends a lively and often moving guide to once vibrant spaces that have been abandoned or swept away
GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production whose design and cartoonish acting overwhelms the close scrutiny of characters
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys the raucous familiarity of a traditional topsy-turvy pantomime
RON JACOBS introduces the latest novel by the best writer of US working-class fiction writing today
The Red Lion
Trafalgar Studios, London
FOOTBALL — beautiful game, sometimes a very ugly business. And at the heart of this piece by the accomplished Patrick Marber is the commodification of young player Jordan (Dean Bone).
Talented but damaged in more ways than one, he seems to embody the tension between the old and the new — football’s golden age versus a brash business world.
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