Writer: Rob Ward
Director: Bex Bowsher
Described as “A knockout play about Labour, love and the beautiful game,” Love It If We Beat Them was first produced at Live Theatre in March 2023. It starts just before the 1997 general election as the party of the working class had swept aside the forces of their left wing to reinvent themselves as neoliberal New Labour. Meanwhile Kevin Keegan was leading Newcastle United to the brink of winning the league. Writer Rob Ward was stimulated to write the play by the obvious parallels with the current era, specifically Corbyn’s ousting to be replaced by Starmer and the upturn in United’s fortunes.
In a Newcastle social club, middle-aged Len, ex-pitman and staunch “Toon” supporter is playing pool with the younger Michael, his best friend and a Sunderland fan, and gloating about United’s successes in the Premier League. Both men share a past with the unions and the Labour Party, though the demise of the pits has left both unemployed. Len is comfortably off because of medical retirement while Michael is scrabbling around for odd days of work.
When Len learns the sitting Labour MP has died, he feels sure his hour has come and resolves to fight for the Labour candidacy. Unfortunately, however, the party has other ideas and parachutes in the young, educated professional, Victoria from Manchester. She and Len, predictably, lock horns and Len asks Michael to get to know her, in the hope of finding her weaknesses. Frustratingly for Len, the younger man becomes emotionally involved with her and finds his loyalties shifting.
Len has been keeping his candidacy secret from his wife Jean, who has no desire to see him risking his health and spending every week down in London, but she finds out. The couple have their own troubles, arising from the loss of a baby 25 years earlier and Len’s stoic refusal to properly address his feelings, or hers. This leads them to a relationship counsellor, with dubious benefits.
When Len sees how the wind is blowing about the candidacy, in a strangely shocking moment, he tears up his party membership card and sets himself up to fight for the seat as an independent, thereby setting the scene for a battle where his own past actions come back to threaten his hopes. The play is punctuated by commentary from Newcastle games and the scores for each match being written on a blackboard.
The north-eastern dialogue has the ring of total authenticity, despite Ward’s Liverpool origins, and conjures an instant rapport with the audience through the amusing banter about the rivalry between Newcastle and Sunderland. The actors are excellent, making the most of the dialogue and fully inhabiting their characters, all of which are relatable and nuanced, extending well beyond stereotypes.
David Nellist’s Len is no shouty ignoramus. His convictions run deep, and he is eloquent and persuasive. Eve Tucker’s Victoria is not just a shiny opportunist; she was born in Newcastle and wants to genuinely make a difference to honour the memory of her Geordie grandfather. Similarly, Daniel Watson’s Michael is a thoughtful portrayal, vulnerable in his pursuit of Victoria and believably conflicted when turning away from his long-time friend and mentor. Jessica Johnson’s Jean is perhaps the most engaging character, warm and funny but becoming caustic and forceful when voicing her understandable frustrations.
The nub of the pay comes in a few lines of dialogue between the two candidates that seems to crystallise the Labour party’s dilemma: Len’s “What is power without principle?” drawing the response, “What are principles without power?”
Bex Bowsher’s direction keeps things moving, whilst allowing room for the characters to develop, and makes the most of Alison Ashton’s effective set design, dominated as it has to be by a pool table. Anna Reddyhoff’s lighting and Matthew Tuckey’s sound design are effective and inconspicuous.
This is a play about politics and the art of compromise, with all the inherent pain that goes with that but it is also a love song to the region, as north eastern as pease pudding and understandably catnip to a Newcastle audience. If the dramatic tension lessens in the second half, this is one of the problems all playwrights face when using a backdrop of real-life events. Nonetheless, an artfully crafted final scene gives Len – and the audience – a moment of joy and a form of redemption.
Runs until 28 September 2024
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