REVIEW: THE PITCH at The Space Theatre, 17th-21st September

‘A highly captivating insight into modern Belfast’ ★★★★★

In a trend of football plays, The Pitch - with its political playground and familial characters - holds its own amongst the best of them.

Set on an empty football-turned-GAA pitch in East Belfast, The Pitch centres around two lads (and one’s intrusive younger sister) who clash and bond and clash and bond again over sports, politics, religion and their respective Northern Irish identities. Where some writers may be quick to place their dynamic as Catholic vs Protestant, writer Philip Catherwood takes this further, offering the characters their own individually rich journeys throughout the play.

Deren, Robbie, and Melissa, played by Jake Douglas, James Grimm, and Dión Di Maio, offer an electric chemistry and brilliant familiarity, letting the audience into their playing space - or hiding space, depending on the time of day - as if we were part of the dysfunctional team they gradually build together. 

There is clearly a successful collaboration between writer, director and actors that seamlessly offers a natural flow of dialogue, physicalisation, and improvised quirks. The transitions were slick, with a perfectly bare set that grew alongside the apprehension: it was easy to forget we were the audience of a play, not the locals on the pitch.

It is also worth mentioning that the use of ‘live props’ - the football and Gaelic ball - was brilliantly executed. Working with live props on stage is not an easy task - especially when surrounded by an audience, yet the unpredictability of the balls added a heightened tension to the atmosphere that was reminiscent of the underlying tensions of the unconventional friendship at the centre of the play.

Running at 90 minutes, The Pitch offers a highly captivating insight into modern Belfast, still reeling from The Troubles, passed down and presented as generational trauma. Aside from its witty, fast-paced format, The Pitch pushes the idea of agreeing to disagree, and how far you can go before politics intercepts play.

The Pitch

The Space, London

17^th-21^st September

https://space.org.uk/event/the-pitch/

Writer

Philip Catherwood

Director

Thea Mayeux

Cast:

James Grimm, Jake Douglas, Dión Di Maio

Review by Anna Rastelli