The Pass, Royal Court Theatre

Football is now as well known for its scandals as it is for goals. Sex, money and corruption all seem to go hand in hand with the game, as countless tabloid front pages have exposed. This should offer ample material, then, for award-winning playwright John Donnelly, whose new play The Pass follows the career of a football star across twelve years. The Royal Court is not giving much away about the plot, but we’re promised sex, fame and a star performance from Russell Tovey , a familiar face from his roles in The History Boys , Being Human and Him & Her . 

The Royal Court’s new associate director John Tiffany makes a swift follow up to his Christmas chiller Let the Right One In as he returns to the theatre to direct this new play. Tiffany’s biggest success by far is the long-running and multi award-winning Black Watch , for which he bagged an Olivier Award for best director. He can also boast a sturdy track record with productions such as Broadway and West End hit musical Once and a string of shows for the National Theatre of Scotland , where he first forged his fruitful creative partnership with the Royal Court’s new artistic director Vicky Featherstone .

The beautiful game, despite being beloved of millions of fans, has not always been so beautiful on stage. Fit and Proper People at the Soho Theatre, for instance, might have transformed the theatre with real turf and floodlights, but it was almost universally slammed by the critics. More recently, playwright Tom Wells has found success by focusing on the plucky amateur side of the game in Jumpers for Goalposts , so we’re intrigued to see if Donnelly and Tiffany can perform a similar theatrical rescue for professional football.