Brighton Year-Round 2026

Stand or Fall: The Fall and Rise of Brighton Albion Theatre

Treason Show Brighton Shakespeare Company Brighton

Genre: Comedy, Community Theatre, Contemporary, Costume, Family, Historical, Mainstream Theatre, New Writing, Theatre

Venue: Theatre Royal, Brighton

Festival: Brighton Year-Round

Low Down

Review

It’s 1997 and the Goldstone football ground that had stood for 95 years, ever since the two Brighton footballs teams merged, is about to close for the last time. Villain developer Archer and his henchman gleefully predict the end of the club. So how did it all go right? Mark Brailsford’s exuberant and moving new work Stand or Fall: The Fall and Rise of Brighton Albion arrives at Theatre Royal Brighton. Directed by Brailsford for the Treason Show and Brighton Shakespeare Company Brighton, it plays till September 26.

Through Ethel Murman’s superb videography, lighting and AV does much of the historical heavy-lifting, the storytelling is filtered through one family’s experience of a club. It’s well-integrated with Sean Chapman’s two diminutive set-builds – a family breakfast table on one side and a Relate couch on the other. Everything else is projected through Murman’s giant video screen, and Chapman’s use of a gauze screen to enact scenes (like World War One tableaux). There’s gleeful projections of footballing triumphs including whole clips of goal-scoring. It’s impossible not to be cheered by the cheers on and off the sound system.

The best way to celebrate a feelgood story such as this is through tight panto, relatable core protagonists, comedic writing and recognizable villains. Stand Or Fall has it all: and they’re mostly real people invoked, apart from the core family. Andrew Crouch plays an initially 13-year-old Danny from 1997; who grows from gawky boy to awkward late teen through confident record-shop owner, with a muted footie obsession. There’s club rapport with his Seagull-obsessed dad played by James Petherick with warmth and a superb blind spot when it comes to anything not football. Petherick manages to anchor what it is to be a lifelong fan without sending that up, and rounds it with humanity and a sense of history.

Sarah Mann as his wife – and Danny’s mother – Sally is the perfect long-suffering foil. She loves football but if your idea of going away somewhere is an away match, what do you end up doing? Sally’s answer is quite drastic. Talk about  – what? – with the enemy? Mann like Brailsford helms her own theatre company, and brings to Sally a wry warmth and humour. Easily Mann’s most spectacular role though is a late appearance as Sarina Wiegman, the England Women’s football coach; with impossibly long arms flailing in a semaphore of what might happen to BHA by 2033.

But then BHA already has form when it comes to beating Manchester United, including last week (what timing!). We’ve come a long way since 1983.

They’re joined by Paul Moriarty as Albert Smith the stoic grandfather (he also plays Dick Knight, chairman and saviour of BHC 1997-2009). Moriarty bring sa magisterial sense to whatever he does, and he makes of albert someone touched by the darkness of the century. Finally there’s almost-orphaned Babs (an exuberant Rebecca Blanchard), someone who apart from a brief late-teen wobble into nightclubs (the infamous Pink Coconut scene) is football-mad too. Sally always hopes Rebecca and Danny might get together. Blanchard makes comically poignant use of her last Rollo, and ripples through Danny’s life. There’s comedic chemistry between her and Crouch.

Offside as it were, Lily Sitzia (also assistant director) appears mainly as Carrie the Relate counsellor, navigating Sally and Dad through a divorce and. – wait for it. Brailsford himself plays eight roles because you cannot not count seagulls. Archer the villain, a World War One soldier, and cameos as Tony Blair, pre-punch John Prescott who bites through red tape, passing seagulls, a Withdean squirrel and heroic BHA founder John Jackson (1861-1931) onscreen with the full Edwardian, and shares all the football commentators with guest appearances by Jonathan Pearce and Johnny Cantor

As with Panto, there’s delicious signalling. If Chelsea is mentioned lighting goes crimson and Carmina Burana crashes on. There’s mischievous use of Bach’s gothic-tinged Toccata and Fugue in D minor as Dracula-like impending doom. And even a clip from Francis Lai’s Love Story theme. But just wait for what Brailsford does with that Dorothy song. Elsewhere though there’s poignant use of ‘Sussex By the Sea’, as the story segues (or seagulls) back to WW1; and forward through iterations of the same song, seven years into the future. Brailsford doesn’t stint from pointing out that grandfather Albert never sings it: he remembers his own father George “a dignified man” had seen too many young men who heard it as the last music of their lives.

Conversely Brailsford and Sitzia relish their villainous double-act as Archer and Belotti rather like Dick Dastardly and his dog Mutley (Sitzia always getting clumped for saying the wrong thing). They end in a very red place indeed. There’s a rage of triggers including Crystal Palace, BHA’s nemesis, and appropriate boos from the audience.

The narrative starting with 1997, slips back then forward, taking BHA and the family across the Withdean Stadium Years (2000-11) and then the arrival at Falmer’s Amex, where Dick Knight could finally hand over (in May 2009) to Tony Bloom (present in the audience). The ups downs and ups of a fan marriage mirrors the club’s fortunes; and Danny and Babs have their dip-times too. Sad notes and endings are struck, and all within a firm but touching narrative envelope. The triumphs end with that 2033 projection. It all ends on a communal note with the Brighton Swing Choir, as father and son stare into a hopeful tomorrow.

And there’s a shock announcement. Something no-one could have predicted. It’s good news though.

A game of two halves, is lasts just under two hours. It’s a must-see if you love community, especially Brighton community. More than a fan play, even more than football, it celebrates a wider Sussex and the aspirations of so many people to take joy in a lifestyle, a club, a sport and what it is to know you’re blue and white. Even if you’re a seagull.

Assistant Director Lily Sitzia, Script Consultant Paul Hodson, Lighting and AV Designer Ethel Murman, Stage Manager Katy Matthews, ASM Oscar Smart, Trish Norman-mason, Choir Albion shirts Courtesy Phil Shelley, Marketing and Publicity Nicky Sweetland Music Sussex By the Sea – Classical arrangement Michael Walters, Seagulls Over the Dowland – mar Brailsford, Performed by Brighton Swing Choir.

In Association with Brighton and Hove Albion FC

Paul Camlllin Head of Media BHAFC, Ian Hart Associate Producer, Simon Levenson Associate Producer.

Published September 24, 2026September 25, 2026 by Simon Jenner