Down the stairs…
Along the corridor…
Round the corner…
Into the dressing room… HIS dressing room. Hateful, hateful place. Spiteful, spiteful place. Dirty, dirty Leeds.
1974. Brian Clough, the enfant terrible of British football, tries to redeem his managerial career and reputation by winning the European Cup with his new team. Leeds United. The team he has openly despised for years, the team he hates and which hates him. Don Revie’s Leeds.
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| Luke Dickson (Brian Clough) in The Damned United 2017 |
What was the inspiration for this performance?
David Peace very kindly gifted us the rights to The Damned United, as a supporter of Red Ladder. We had lost our regular Arts Council funding back in 2014 and so we took this opportunity eagerly!
Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas?
Yes. Good theatre provokes conversation - it doesn't necessarily provide answers but it raises important issues and questions, and after the show these discussions are often more important than the piece of theatre.
How did you become interested in making performance?
Finding the best and most suitable creative team to collaborate on a performance project is what is most satisfying. I approached Anders Lustgarten to adapt the book for the stage because I knew he, as a football fan, would relish the opportunity and he really understood the poetic and dark qualities of the original book.
Why this adaptation now?
It is ten or more years since The Damned United was published and almost as long since the film - Clough's view of the business of running football and how it relates to working class life were prescient and we felt there was plenty in this for us to reflect upon. The book and the play are not just about football - the work really comments upon the pressures upon us to be 'successful' and how much money plays upon our existences.
And what do you think the play can bring that can't be experienced from the book or the film?
The book is a fiction because it tries to climb into Clough's mind and suggests the suffering and nightmares which he endured. We have tried to bring that aspect to the stage in a way which is closer to the book than the film.
Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?
Reducing the scale of the show from eleven onstage (the original production in 2016) to three was our main challenge. The brilliant design and use of video by Nina Dunn is a key to this and I feel it is a more intimate and powerful experience than the larger production.
Does the show fit with your usual productions?
All Red Ladder productions are about struggle in its different forms - so The Damned United is another in a series of shows about how living in a materialistic, high pressured capitalist society is in fact traumatic How we cope with that trauma is different every time and watching this modern tragedy is akin to watching a Shakespearean tragic figure.
What do you hope that the audience will experience?
I hope they see the fascinating relationship between two men, the jealousies, the tension and the love. For football fans the play gives an insight into the loneliness of the manager as well as the hostility and passion of the cauldron that is a football stadium. But really the football is only in the background - what we really see is the testosterone fuelled relationship of two rivals and friends.
ORIGINALLY CO-PRODUCED WITH THE WEST YORKSHIRE PLAYHOUSE, THE DAMNED UNITED TAKES YOU INSIDE THE TORTURED MIND OF A GENIUS SLAMMING UP AGAINST HIS LIMITS, AND BRINGS TO LIFE THE BEAUTY AND BRUTALITY OF FOOTBALL, THE WORKING MAN’S BALLET.
BY ANDERS LUSTGARTEN
ADAPTED FROM THE NOVEL BY DAVID PEACE
IN ASSOCIATION WITH UNITY THEATRE LIVERPOOL
THE PLEASANCE, EDINBURGH
2 AUG 2017 – 28 AUG 2017
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