An Evening with Gary Lineker

No harm in reusing things, is there? I have no doubt that I shall use my blog as a source of inspiration / words for emails to people who don't know about its existence - which is the whole of the planet at this moment in time! (Note to self: do not overuse exclamation marks!)

I'm in a play, you see. Not quite sure how I got there, but it followed a particularly impressive panto production in January put on by a local amateur dramatics group. I confess to being a bit sniffy about such things, having been to the 'proper' theatre a lot before getting married. But I was genuinely surprised that people were willing and able to work hard and put as good a production (given the budget) as the so-called professionals...

More on the audition process later, but in the meantime I have 'reused' the words that we 'actors' had to put together for our director reflect our understanding / interpretation of the play. I will discuss my involvement with the world of 'Am Dram' in later postings, but you can probably now guess where the blog title came from. Here is what 'An Evening with Gary Lineker' means to me:

Football provides both a backdrop and a structure for this play. All of the characters are dysfunctional in one way or another, apart from perhaps Birgitta the young German, who seems fairly level headed and rather amused at the ‘real life’ farce that these strange English people around her are enacting. Perhaps she provides a POV for the audience?

Monica is disillusioned with her marriage and envious of Bill’s passion that is still alive for football, but not for her. She tries to ‘share’ this passion by fantasising about one of the players. Bill is either oblivious to this, or what is more likely is that he chooses to ignore it, either dismissing it as a running joke or by using the excuse of the World Cup as a reason not to discuss their relationship. Monica often speaks out to the audience, in a similar way to Michael Caine in ‘Alfie’ and the titular Shirley Valentine.

Dan is perhaps the person that Bill would like to be, as he seems to be having his cake and eating it too. They both share a passion for football - and Monica as it turns out - but Dan seems to have few other commitments. Despite having an affair with his wife, Bill seems to be rather fond of Dan and almost dismisses it out of hand. This camaraderie seems to be mutual, as he offers to leave Bill’s company to avoid any further embarrassment.

Alas, Ian is a rather tedious and self-centred individual, who is using this trip as an opportunity to be annoying, get laid, and / or get a new job by stealing Dan from Bill. However he does provide a useful comedy device for the play, both on his own and as a foil for others.

Although it has a somewhat surreal ending to it, the play seems to otherwise have all the traditional elements:

• Caricatures, apart from perhaps Birgitta who is almost a politically correct anti-caricature;
• Use of a metaphor device, in this case football, to examine the human condition;
• Passion, of people and of ‘The Beautiful Game’;
• Betrayal, of emotions and professional circumstances.
• Humour, both verbal and physical;
• A moral, in that real life often has to play second fiddle to obsessions, and that fantasies cannot provide any real answers.

And tonight Matthew, I shall be 'Bill' ;)