BWW Reviews: TOTAL FOOTBALL, Barbican, May 19 2011

Nicolas Clarke

Total Football is an hour's worth of slap-stick low brow humour combined with some deep introspection of national culture - nominally, they claim to represent English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish behaviours, but gets stuck at poking fun at only the English.

It's done with both a light touch (the two actors remain suited and booted throughout) and with a Heavy Dollop of physical comedy.

Even though football is in the title, there is little to appeal solely to a sporting/football fan audience (and vice versa - there's little to put off those who loathe the beautiful game).

The one piece of action is superbly done with some gymnastic performances from both actors - it would have been great to see this feature more strongly.

The funny man/straight man routine doesn't quite keep its head above water for the full 70 minutes; but having said that it didn't drag at all, and the fact that the audience were laughing along throughout shows how effective the performance is.