**Writer: Chris O’Connor**
**Director: Gitika Buttoo**
An unlikely pairing turns out to be a perfect match. Leeds Playhouse’s new production is a delightful and deeply moving exploration of football and dementia. _Through It All Together_ by Chris O’Connor shows a fan’s slow, mental decline whilst simultaneously plotting the jerky rise in fortunes of Leeds United.
Amanda Stooley’s superbly flexible ‘A’ frame set houses a family home with spaces above inhabited by a host of characters to define as their own. At the opening, we meet Howard and Sue Wright (Reece Dinsdale and Shobna Gulati), a devoted couple who have lived their lives with clear passions: for each other, their daughter Hazel (Natalie Davies) and most significantly in this piece, for Leeds United. Howard’s recent diagnosis of dementia has sent them all reeling. Anxiety for the future is wracking them all with trepidation and guilt and the best distraction that they can find is the fortunes of their beloved team.
From the outset, this play has huge appeal to its local audience: within moments of it opening, the audience is joining in with the team’s familiar chants and anthems. There is many a bespoke joke which is greeted with a roar of laughter by those who remember all too well the matches against Wigan or Sheffield Wednesday. And even to those who have absolutely no knowledge or recollection of the results, the response is contagious and like the game itself, unifying.
Reported by a great selection of pundits, the excitement generated by the arrival of the new coach, Marcelo Bielsa, is palpable. According to some its likely to be a case of ‘same old shit’, whilst others are convinced that this new start will be nothing short of a miracle. (The foretelling of this possibility, in the form of stained-glass depiction of the hero of the hour, is genius!) The pundits – two men in a pub, two in their ad-hoc radio station and two official commentators, are all played brilliantly by Dean Smith and Everal A Walsh. They make these characters so distinct and diverse that at the end of the play it’s hard to believe that it is just a cast of five. Smith and Walsh bring a hilarious energy to their many roles – the moment with the cabbages in the Wetherby Morrisons is a particular highlight – and if you know its significance or not, it’s very funny.
These scenes serve to heighten the emotion when set against a family experiencing the slow and lingering loss that comes with the mental decline of a much-loved relation. Gulati and Dinsdale portray beautifully and with touching humour their distress as they cling to the threads of their relationship as it comes under the strain caused by the illness. Their daughter, clearly devoted to both her parents, manages to be more pragmatic and Davies is adept at pitching exactly the right emotions being both supportive and practical.
Set at the beginning of this decade, the additional problems caused by the pandemic are reflected. Sue is hospitalised with Covid and Howard doesn’t understand either why he can’t visit her or where she is. Remembering this recent history is another aspect which draws the audience in – the common experience is relatable to all.
Director Gitika Buttoo has some excellent material to work with here and has truly succeeded in making this a piece which will certainly resonate loudly with Leeds, but the universality of the beautiful game would probably even have the most hardened Wigan fans reaching for tissues.
**Runs until 19th July 2025**