Red Pitch, Bush Theatre review ★★★★★

A south London football pitch – neglected by local authorities, eyed up by developers and a second home to the boys who practise there religiously – is the setting of Tyrell Williams’ masterful first play. It’s a touching portrayal of male friendship concealed in its trio of characters’ commitment to the game they’ve grown up playing together.

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Sixteen-year-olds Bilal (Kedar Williams-Stirling), Joey (Emeka Sesay) and Omz (Francis Lovehall) – each reprising his role from last year’s award-winning production and delivering a phenomenal performance – share a dream of becoming professional footballers. They’ve been training all their lives on Red Pitch, a local football field with a history etched into the stains on its bricks and its own set of rules which are observed like laws by its players. Hopes rest on an upcoming match where scouts from top football teams will be in the stands, but there are potential obstacles, too: Omz must juggle training with caring for his elderly grandfather, Bilal is navigating a strict dad, and a party with girls threatens to distract them all.

Francis Lovehall (Omz), Emeka Sesay (Joey) and Kedar Williams-Stirling (Bilal) in Red Pitch at Bush Theatre. Photo: Helen Murray

Director Daniel Bailey’s production has the audience closing in on the pitch from all four sides, further emphasising the fact this space is paramount to its players. He captures the intimacies of this three-way friendship through knowing stares, playful tussles and continual teasing as they pass the ball and tackle one another.

Williams’ script – written colloquially and all the better for it – always shows, rather than tells, as a means of providing context. It’s through the boys’ anecdotes that we realise gentrification is closing in on this corner of the city. Local fried chicken shop Morley’s has been turned into a café serving soup. The laundrette is closing too and residents are being moved to new blocks as their estates undergo refurbishments, making their flats more appealing to private buyers.

Emeka Sesay (Joey), Kedar Williams-Stirling (Bilal) and Francis Lovehall (Omz) in Red Pitch at Bush Theatre. Photo: Helen Murray

Credit must go to designer Amelia Jane Hankin’s set for subtly illustrating the pitch’s long history. The players superstitiously double-tap the right knob of the railing every time they enter or leave the pitch, and while this time-hallowed ritual is never explicitly referenced, it’s visible through the knob's worn paint. Elsewhere, a faded dark patch on a wall, we learn, is a blood stain from an infamous fight the boys suspect will stay with those involved for ever. Credit, too, to fight director Kev McCurdy for choreographing one of the most vivid and wince-worthy bust-ups this reviewer has seen on stage.

If Red Pitch is a second home to these boys, those who use it are a second family. An off-stage coach is an authoritative father figure to all of them. When Bilal’s grandfather is in trouble, a feud is instantly set aside as they team up to search for him. And when one of the three gets scouted by Queens Park Rangers, he credits being put through his paces by the other two.

Red Pitch won a slew of awards after premiering at the Bush Theatre in 2022 and deservedly so: it’s a remarkably nuanced play that, through a loveable everyday story, wholly captures what it is to be a 16-year-old, football-mad teen from these ‘endz’.