Writer: Ted Milligan
Director: Martin Willis
Seven Dials Playhouse’s “Seven from Seven” Edinburgh preview season continues with stand-up and character comedian Ted Milligan’s live football mockumentary, Ted Milligan: United. Mockumentary success relies to some extent on familiarity with the subject matter, in this case, basement-league English football, and the genre it’s mocking, namely, streaming documentaries about football teams. Netflix-addicted football fans will likely find much to enjoy here. The less soccer-savvy may struggle.
The town of Crubchester, located “somewhere between Plymouth and Newcastle”, is on its uppers. Once king of cash register production, the rise of contactless payments has seen its only industry go to the wall. Worse, Crubchester United, struggling financially and competitively, has fallen into the very lowest tier of the league. The club, like the town, “has gone from weakness to weakness”. Even Hollywood royalty would baulk at investing here.
Yet, there is light in the darkness. The six-year-old scion of a Saudi oil dynasty spies an opportunity. Can a dose of oil cash (and sportswashing sponsorship from the US Army in the form of a brand new “We Killed Osama stadium”) save the day? Don’t bet on it.
Milligan tracks a single season in the club’s fortunes, delivered in a mix of character-led comedy and impeccably produced film inserts that certainly feel true to Netflix’s documentary production style. The performer has a formidable talent for mimicry and pens some pithy one-liners. Finding an affinity with his characters demands a level of familiarity with football in-jokes that not everyone possesses.
We meet passionate season ticket holders, Linda, who writes children’s books demeaning opposing teams, and Matt, who drinks too much and can detail every vital player in the club’s august history (a reference to 70s icons Hans Kraft and Claus Werk cues an inevitable electropop song). Then there is the club CEO who sounds like Boris Johnson on steroids, and his ditzy coke-snorting DJ son.
The touchline antics of German coach Jurgen Flick add some physical theatre. Team captain Lee delivers a stirring pep talk against bullying at a local primary school: “Remember, some of the kids you’re picking on don’t have Porsches,” he warns them solemnly. The beloved, though vain, Italian striker inadvertently insults the team mascot, leading to a cringing live TV apology. All solid stuff, but you will laugh more if you know who is being mocked here.
Milligan is such a bubbly, engaging, and hard-working host that one very much wants to like this show. In the end, though, Ted Milligan: United is one for the fans. A month at the Edinburgh Fringe is coming up.
Reviewed on 24 July 2025
