BWW Reviews: RESULT, Pleasance Theatre, April 23 2015

Stokesy looks at an Instagram post of Barcelona's Gerard Pique driving his Lamborghini with the top down and Shakira in the passenger seat and he thinks, "That could be me!" And, unlike 99.999% of 17-year-old lads who have that same thought, it really could be him - because Stokesy is in his final year at a Premier League club's Academy. But that's a brutal meritocracy and few will get a pro contract, a Golden Ticket. And if Stokesy isn't a professional footballer at 18, what is he?

Result (continuing at the Pleasance Theatre until 17 May) follows a bunch of lads through their final year at one of English football's top academies, focusing on the impact made by Mark, a sports psychologist barely older than his charges. Its message is that football needs to do rather more than it does for those whom it rejects while still children. Having dangled the carrot of unimaginable riches and acclaim in front of their apprentices, clubs rip it away and cast out these boys into a world for which they are utterly unprepared.

So Sketty Theatre's heart is in the right place, but do they deliver a Premier League theatrical experience? After conceding an early goal or two, they do. As writers/directors, Alex Clarke and Toby Clarke give us nine somewhat predictable characters: the old school coach; the aggressive centre-forward; the lonely goalkeeper; the joker in the pack; the intense high-achiever; the bright foreign lad; the motherly physio; the geekish shrink. Types maybe, but at least it allows non-fans into the players' football-saturated lives.

Where the Clarkes really score is in the performances they get from their cast. Movement director Fionn Cox-Davies represents sport better than I have ever seen it done on stage or film. It helps that the lads look like footballers (and can obviously play too), but the raucous chaos of the match in-play is beautifully captured by something akin to modern dance (to a throbbing techno beat) offset with spot lit freeze-frames that captures the save, the assist, the goal. Rarely can The Beautiful Game have lived up to its hackneyed moniker more convincingly - the sequences are worth the ticket price alone.

The cast is very good too, Cameron Jack's sweary coach avoids caricature and softens as he learns; Richard James-Clarke's sports psychologist shows the hurt of rejection, but sticks to his guns and earns the respect of the hard lads; Jules Chan is charming as Japanese forward Ichiro, almost wordless, but increasingly one of the team. Best of all is Joel Phillimore as Tich, the goalkeeper who wants a mother's love even more than a pro contract - he was a man apart, not just in height and kit, but in so many other ways too (as goalkeepers so often are).

It's tough to get teenage boys to talk about what's on their minds, so anything that might prompt one or two to step forward and say that life isn't all bantz, babes and beers is commendable. Result will do that. It will also prompt us to spare a thought for those lads who don't make it: because they are bloody good players - just not quite good enough to call themselves "a footballer". It leaves us in no doubt that we should do all we can to make sure they call themselves something other than "a failed footballer".

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