|
|
|
|
|
Andrew Lancel as Brian Clough. Production pictures: Malcolm I. Johnson The Damned United
Derby Theatre**** I DID not attend this production as a
neutral observer. As a teenager I watched Clough manage his great
Derby side at the Baseball Ground, then later admired his triumphs with
Nottingham Forest, found his television appearances as a pundit
unmissable, and was at Portman Road for his final game as a manager. I found David Peace’s book to be amongst the best
ever written about football, and the film a very good effort at bringing
him to cinema. So it would be fair to say that my expectations were
high, my critical faculties sharply tuned. Could the play seal a treble? This run opened at the West Yorkshire Playhouse,
which was brave. Leeds was hostile on his appointment as manager of
their club, and it went downhill from there. By contrast, here at Derby,
he was on home turf, the tiered seating of the theatre doubling for the
Popside. In Derby they named a road after him, in Leeds
the players and fans would have liked to have buried him under one. Clough as a character has all the ingredients of
great drama. A promising playing career cut short by injury leaving him
with a burning desire to prove himself. It is difficult, more than forty years on, for
those who were not around at the time, to grasp the grip that Clough had
on the then contemporary football psyche. “Big ‘Ead”, along with Malcolm
Allison, paved the way for the modern celebrity manager of whom Jose
Mourinho is the most obvious heir.
The now levelled Baseball Ground was a cauldron
of emotion and noise, the Popside the cheerleaders from the terraces,
the upper seated tiers stamping their approbation, Cloughie the
conductor to the faithful’s chorus. It was a working class theatre where triumph and
failure unfolded, and heroes and villains played their parts. From the
age of those in the opening night audience, many had come to relive
their long lapsed roles. The ghosts of those now far off football battles
returned as Mackay, Nish, Davies, and Hector once more confronted Giles,
Bremner, Hunter and Charlton on the pitch, while Sam Longson and Leeds
chairman Manny Cussins watched from the Directors box, and Don Revie
pored over his dossiers. The love of the Ossie Road End, and the disdain
of the Gelderd End, was nostalgically evoked. Anders Lustgarten’s new stage adaptation attempts
to convert what has previously worked so well on page and screen, to
stage, in this Red Ladder production. As with the book, the drama is of
Clough’s fateful 44 days at Leeds and his essential, but flawed working
and personal relationship with his assistant, Peter Taylor, played with
laconic fortitude by Tony Bell. Andrew Lancel’s Clough is troubled, brash and
vulnerable, slave to his passion for footballing success, and his
dependence upon alcohol. Derby County's players are balletic masked
figurines. Leeds United's are anonymous mannequins. Lustgarten’s
production aspires to Shakespearean tragedy for this production, and
largely delivers it. Lancel has to carry numerous soliloquy’s, only
briefly interspersed by scenes with Peter Taylor, and the Derby and
Leeds Boards, in a performance of energy, commitment and intelligence. The set, comprising four white lines and a table, supported by video backdrop, with soundscapes by Isobel Waller-Bridge and Nina Dunn, is brilliantly realised by designer Signe Beckmann, and lighting director Tim Skelly. A strong multi- role cast provides a fine squad
with John Graham Davies as Derby County Chairman Sam Longson/Syd Owen/
Bolton, Tom Lorcan as McKenzie, and Tony Turner as Manny Cussins/Jack
Kirkland. Davies portrayal of Leeds’ first team coach, Birmigham born
Syd Owen is a comic delight and an essential counterpoint to his new
manager’s bombast. Lustgarten’s script is far closer to Peace’s
novel than Tom Hooper’s film version, jumping back and forth between the
Derby glory days and the black ones at Leeds. To those unfamiliar with
the story, this could be occasionally confusing, but so long as you
remember that when Taylor is on stage they are in Derby, and when Clough
is on his own they are in Leeds, the narrative works. The Clough family, most notably represented by
locally resident son Nigel - currently managing promotion chasing Burton
Albion and hoping to join Leeds and Derby in the second tier - has been
steadfastly hostile both to Peace’s book, and Hooper’s film. I doubt whether they will be found in the
audience for this production. Which is a shame, as the play celebrates
Clough’s achievements and portrays his flaws and temporary downfall (he
was to spectacularly rise again at Nottingham Forest) in an Everyman
sense, not as personal spite. An omnipresent bottle of scotch whiskey is a
reminder of his alcoholism, the language is often crude male machismo,
but the story is skewed more in favour of his glory days at the Baseball
Ground than his Leeds agony. This is no hatchet job. Clough was an intensely private man behind a
brash façade with more front than Buckingham Palace. The latter trait
Rod Dixon’s lively production falls just short of
extra time at 85 minutes, with no half time interval, and is an
authentic and compelling sketch of one of football’s greatest
characters. In parts, the statistics heavy dialogue, whilst mirroring
Peace’s method and intent, is at the expense of the drama. The cognoscenti know the detail, the non-football
fan doesn’t care. And the finale is a little awkward. But the passion of
the man prevails culminating in the finest moment of the play when
Clough and Taylor part for Leeds and Brighton. The unspoken cry from the
audience is; “Don’t!” As the cast took their bows the applause rolled
down the aisles with an intensity more commonly associated with a vital
league win, than an opening night. Derby people know their theatre as
well as they know their football, as the heightened response to Tony
Bell’s bow as Peter Taylor bore testament to. Of course Lancel took the
plaudits, not only for his performance but on behalf of a bona fide
local legend. After the curtain calls and an interval, the cast
and director took an impromptu question and answer session which was
very well attended and provided numerous gossipy titbits. Some Leeds
players had attended the West Yorkshire Playhouse performances including
Peter Lorimer, Don Revie’s name was called out and Clough (playfully)
booed by some, and Tony Bell had met with Peter Taylor’s daughter who
had provided several insights into her father and confirmed that it was
Clough’s attitude towards Taylor’s remuneration which had irreparably
breached their relationship. The Damned United runs till Saturday 16th
April. Gary Longden 07-04-16
|
|
|
|
Rags to riches success with Derby and Forest. “The Fall” at Leeds. The
bromance with Peter Taylor, and the personal demons which both drove,
and haunted him.
was
consummately exploited by Lancel, in a portrayal which eschewed any
attempt at mimicry or imitation, in favour of getting to grips with the
essence of a man, bereft at the sudden loss of his mother, and obsessed
with money, even at the expense of his right hand man Taylor.