Jumpers for Goalposts – Red Stitch

Overview

Jumpers for Goalposts is a romantic comedy set in a queer community sports league in Hull. The theatre at Red Stitch has been done up as a suitably dingy graffitied locker room. The cast have cracked out their best Yorkshire accents. Pink soccer jerseys have been made.

Coach Viv (Red Stitch regular Kate Cole), having parted from her former team the Lesbian Rovers, is trying to prove herself with a new gang of misfits called Barely Athletic. There's dumpster diving silly hat wearing busker Beardy (Ray Chong Nee), nervous aspiring coach Danny (Johnathan Peck), the even more nervous and totally un-sporty boy from the library who's only been invited because Danny wants to hook up with him (Rory Kelly), and Joe (Paul Denny), Viv's depressed straight brother-in-law, who she's roped in to get him out of the house.

Following the familiar lines of both the rom com and the underdog sports drama, the play doesn't offer too many surprises. The team has its ups and downs, and so does their love in the locker room. The central romance is sweet and well-written and there are bittersweet moments aplenty in a show about celebrating small victories.

In case you hadn't already picked it up from the same-sex romances, Red Stitch goes to great pains to establish that this is a queer show — from blasting you with 'Karma Chameleon' as you take your seats, to serenading you with 'I Am What I Am' as you walk out. The script, by quickly rising young British playwright Tom Wells, however generally avoids cliché and plays for slice-of-life realism.

As a sports drama it seems well observed. Leastways, the sense of excessive drama and stress over nothing lines up with how your Concrete Playground correspondent remembers sport being.

As a queer theatre piece, it hits some goals and misses others. While the league is described as being an LGBTI league, the focus of the play is firmly on the letter G. Viv, the only female character, while strongly acted by Cole, is mostly defined by her relentless bossiness. References to the other teams in the league, such as the lesbian team or "Tranny United"  are most often used as punchlines. Maybe it's just because men of whatever sexuality playing sport are such a heavily travelled dramatic ground but these other teams often seemed more intriguing than the one on stage.

As a romantic comedy though, Jumpers for Goalposts succeeds, being both funny and affecting. Its depiction of relationships is honest, both in showing their emotive and problematic aspects and in demonstrating how hurdles to love can be overcome with communication and respect. As such, it is ahead of many works in this genre, in that it offers something meaningful to say about how to make relationships work.