Clough returns to Elland Road as acclaimed play relives his 44 days
HIS TROUBLED stay at Leeds United was the low point of a career that earned him a reputation as one of English football’s greatest – and most unpredictable – managers.
And yesterday Brian Clough – or at least the man playing him in a reworked stage production of
The Damned United – was back at Leeds’s Elland Road ground.
The play tells the story of how Clough only lasted 44 days as United manager following his shock appointment as Don Revie’s successor in 1974.
Actor Luke Dickson was in character during yesterday’s visit to Elland Road, giving onlookers a flavour of a hugely-turbulent time in Leeds’s history. Dressed in his stage attire at pitchside, he brought to life the infamous moment when Clough ordered his new charges to throw their medals in the bin because in his view they had won them all by cheating. The actor then told The
Yorkshire Post: “I was born and raised in Leeds and have been to many a Leeds game but it did feel a bit like I was suddenly on enemy territory!
“I shall give myself a few minutes to think about that and soak it up and take it back with me for when we do the performances.”
He added: “What’s great about these characters, not just Brian Clough, but Don Revie as well, is that everyone has a story about them, particularly the people of Leeds. Playing Clough, for me, it’s not about trying to find the manager, it’s about finding what he was as a man and why he felt the need to fight so hard in his sport.”
The Damned United won acclaim during a five-week run at Leeds’s West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2016.
Now it has been reworked as a smaller-scale production that will visit the Playhouse from March 27 to April 7.
A joint enterprise between the Playhouse and the Red Ladder Theatre Company, the production is heading to Leeds after runs in London and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Red Ladder artistic director Rod Dixon said: “We have scaled it down from 11 on stage to just three and it’s a much more intimate experience and in fact people who have seen both seem to prefer the newer version.”