Reviewed by Ewart Shaw Friday 10th March 2023.
Jack's Ashes is written by Mathew Banes, a former professional cricketer with Durham MCCU and Kent, and Tim Marriott, award winning actor, director, and playwright. The press release tells us that, "Developed in consultation with professional sports bodies and mental health charities, Jack's Ashes is designed to engage through humour in order to reduce stigma and promote conversation about mental fitness."
Tim Marriott tells stories better than most, much better than most. A few bits of costume, some sound effects, and a tale to tell, and he's got your attention for the next hour. This time it's not Watson's hat. It's Jack's cricket jumper, and it's the story of a cricketer's life. It is nowhere near as boring as most retired sportsmen's memoirs are. It starts at school, where he gets picked up on the field by a young woman who suggests ice cream. Guess where that leads.
Jack's story will call to mind the adventures and misadventures of famous cricketers. When your wife flies in from the UK and finds you in bed amid a sea of beer cans, you know you've hit rock bottom.
It turns out that, while he's confiding in us, he's monitoring a cricket team, one of whom seems to be called Jennifer. All will become clear in the final moments. It's not just his story, either, but that of his mate, a stellar player whose life collapsed and ended in tragedy.
Had this been just a tale of some man's life at the crease, Marriott's performance would have been engaging enough, but there's more to it than that. The subtext is that Jack survived with help. His mate didn't. The pressures that Jack faced in this story are mirrored in the real lives of professional sports players. The Australian Cricket Association enlisted Marriott to present this play to groups of cricketers across the country to encourage them to be brave enough to ask for help from their mates, and for their mates to be prepared to give it to them. Note that encourage, the word, has seven letters out of nine, courage.
I had thought, as the Jack character is a high school cricket coach, that the Jennifer might have been a member of a high school team but, in fact, it's a charity match in honour of his late friend.
I'll have to wait to next year to find out who Tim Marriott will personate next. It will be worth waiting for.
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