Spirited story of football underdog

Up ‘n’ Under,Directed by Derek Doddington, Top Dog Theatre, Lyttelton Arts Factory, until July 22

Imagine Rocky, but set in the north of England and with amateur rugby league instead of boxing.

Top Dog Theatre’s new production of classic 1980s John Godber play Up ‘n’ Under is niftily staged and entertaining.

Former rugby league player Arthur, played by the always excellent Tom Trevella, talks his way into an unwise and prideful bet with a shady local called Reg.

He bets his house that in just six weeks he could train any league team to beat the Cobblers, the terrifying Yorkshire champions.

Reg names the Wheatsheaf team, a band of drunks and layabouts who enjoy their weekly drubbing as the happy prelude to their regular drinking session.

With his house and pride on the line, the game is on to train up the Wheatsheaf team into champions.

It’s a familiar underdog sporting formula, but Godber, best known for his 1970s play Bouncers, refreshes the template with humanity and a feel-good spirit of working class pride and camaraderie.

The Rocky films are the explicit touchstone for this story, with Arthur referencing them as his favourite movies. And this is 1984 – a world where there are only three Rocky movies. Imagine that.

But this production seems to draw more broadly from 1980s cinema, with clever staging tricks that evoke movie techniques like split-screen, montage and crosscutting.

The climactic rugby match is particularly well-staged, with a very simple but, effective trick evoking a field of opponents for our band of heroes. A rough and dynamic game of rugby is brought to life so effectively on stage that the audience spontaneously cheered and applauded when our heroes scored a try.

The more experienced actors excel in this ensemble cast of six. Tom Trevella is once again a standout in the lead role.

My one complaint would be the varying success the Kiwi actors have mastering the distinctive Yorkshire accent. Can we have a moratorium on New Zealand actors attempting regional British accents?

Either adapt the play for New Zealand, cast Yorkshire actors, or choose another play. Or I don’t think anyone would mind if actors performed in their native voice. It would certainly be favourable to an accent that slips from region-toregion from one line to the next.

But the accent problem doesn’t impair this entertaining and cleverly staged production of a nicely written Godber play.

It is an agile story of working class pride, community and triumph. – Charlie Gates