Edinburgh Fringe 2024
Low Down
Football camaraderie can act as a powerful force for the good. Part of Travfest24.
Review
This is a fictional account of a Scottish women’s football team playing at the Homeless World Cup in Italy. However, at its core is a depiction of a real event. Homeless Football World Cups were established towards the end of the last century and now take place annually, with worldwide participation. There are two main aims : to transform the lives of participants and to change attitudes to homelessness.
There are a myriad of factors that give rise to homelessness including (but not limited to) addiction, poverty, relationship breakdown, abuse, refugee status and, of course, there may be more than one cause.
The Traverse 1 space has been staged in the style of a cutdown football pitch : green turf and a pitch, lockers, water cooler and floodlight gantries (designer Alisa Kalyanova). We are piecemeal introduced to the five women who will make up the Scottish side.
First to the stage is Jo (Chloe-Ann Tylor) who is immediately comfortable with the environment. The others arrive in turn : the bullish B (Hannah Jarrett-Scott), the apparently incongruous Lorraine (Louise Ludgate), timid Sammy (Kim Allan) and uncertain Noor (Hana Greer). Before the play begins, the cast are in character, engaging with the audience, with Jo clearly steering matters.
We learn that the Scottish national team are going to Italy to participate in the World Cup in just three weeks’ time : surely an impossibly short period of time to train and bond. As the play unravels, we begin to understand the myriad of reasons for their degrees of homelessness. They face daily challenges, life getting in the way of training and they are a part of society who function without a safety net. The team bonding is also something of a challenge, given the array of personalities and deep-rooted hurt they each carry with them. Jo is prone to introspection, B is constantly angry, raging at any perceived infraction, Noor is a people pleaser, Sammy’s under-confidence threatens to define her and most perplexing of all, Lorraine with middle-class tells (“just take a taxi” and predilection for Chablis) sleeping at a neighbour’s.
Their relationships are understandably tricky, even counter-intuitive. But sport is a powerful weapon : its ability to build connections, engender confidence and self-worth can be remarkable. And something magical happens – they bond, they grow, they develop self-belief. They get to Italy, successfully participate in the ultimate competition, in so doing handling adversity and discovering layers within themselves hitherto unknown.
The production is cleverly staged and expertly performed. The actors slip in and out of other characters, fluidly and seamlessly, thanks in no small part to Bryony Shanahan’s inventive, fast-moving, direction. Huge credit also to writers Robbie Gordon and Jack Nurse.
Obviously, what homeless people need are the basics that sometimes others can take for granted : food, shelter, money, self-respect, safety. But one of their chief frustrations is the feeling of invisibility…sometimes, they just want to be seen. The Homeless World Cup and this hugely uplifting, powerful and touching tale deliver just that – highly recommended.
