As the 2011/12 football season begins to hot up, Soho theatre will be presenting a new play by Georgia Fitch set behind the scenes of the beautiful game.
Fit And Proper People (7 October to 5 November) examines the backstage dealings behind the nation’s favourite sport through the exploits of Casey Layton, who has returned home to sort her local club out and return them to the Premier League. They have problems, but the solution is obvious, money, and Casey knows just where to get it.
The new show, which brings together the two biggest passions of Soho theatre’s Artistic Director Steve Marmion, will transform the theatre into a stadium, complete with turf and floodlights.
Speaking about the production, Marmion commented: “I hope this play will be a catalyst for conversation and debate on what is happening behind the scenes of British football and who owns our cultural institutions.”
Fitch, whose career has included work on attachment at the Royal Court and Soho theatre, and as Writer-in-Residence at BBC Radio Drama, has written plays including The Footballer’s Wife (with Tracey O’Flaherty), I Like Mine With A Kiss and Adrenalin…Heart (both at the Bush theatre). Fit And Proper People was commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Michael Boyd, Artistic Director of the RSC, added: “We are delighted to be working with Soho this Autumn where past successes including work by David Greig, debbie tucker green and Anthony Neilson have found a home. This latest RSC commission – Fit And Proper People – is an urgent and timely play about values in the world of football. Through our collaboration with Soho theatre we can strike now, while this particular iron is getting hotter all the time and give it a London production with a fantastic director, Steve Marmion, who has worked with us previously as a director at the RSC.”
Soho theatre is currently presenting the office-based comic drama Mongrel Island, which runs until Saturday, when it will be replaced by the OperaUpClose co-production of Don Giovanni, which is aiming to recreate the success of the Olivier Award-winning production of La Bohème.
MA