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Tull – review Tull – review
(7 months later)
Walter Tull (1888-1918) was "the first black outfield footballer to play in the old First Division in England" and, later, a second lieutenant in the Special Reserve of officers. In Phil Vasili's new play, he is portrayed as a figure from the past whose life illumines our present. House lights barely down, the actors throw themselves on to the bare boards of Bolton's octagonal stage. They're a mixed group of men and women wearing 21st-century clothes. Within seconds they're soldiers struggling through the mud of a first world war battlefield. Suddenly the same group is a gang of children larking about at football. It's a filmic transition – a sort of live-action dissolve from the moment before Tull's death to his childhood. David Thacker's direction is poetry in motion, bringing a shimmering fluidity to an otherwise episodic sequence of scenes following this short, vivid life.Walter Tull (1888-1918) was "the first black outfield footballer to play in the old First Division in England" and, later, a second lieutenant in the Special Reserve of officers. In Phil Vasili's new play, he is portrayed as a figure from the past whose life illumines our present. House lights barely down, the actors throw themselves on to the bare boards of Bolton's octagonal stage. They're a mixed group of men and women wearing 21st-century clothes. Within seconds they're soldiers struggling through the mud of a first world war battlefield. Suddenly the same group is a gang of children larking about at football. It's a filmic transition – a sort of live-action dissolve from the moment before Tull's death to his childhood. David Thacker's direction is poetry in motion, bringing a shimmering fluidity to an otherwise episodic sequence of scenes following this short, vivid life.
Vasili's script positions Tull both as an upright individual standing up to racism on the pitch and in the army and as an everyman figure combating social as well as racial injustice. This theme of struggle is expanded through the footballer's (fictional) relationship with a militant suffragette. At times, the layering of issues (racism, feminism, class, capitalism, post-traumatic stress disorder) threatens to destabilise the story. In particular, the counterpointing of suffrage speeches with war scenes comes across as intellectually coherent but feels emotionally off-kilter. The women and the men may be oppressed by the same politico/military/economic establishment, but the situation of the soldiers appears more dreadful. This clumsiness of construction does not detract from the overall impact of the piece, though, especially since so many of these issues continue to confront us today.Vasili's script positions Tull both as an upright individual standing up to racism on the pitch and in the army and as an everyman figure combating social as well as racial injustice. This theme of struggle is expanded through the footballer's (fictional) relationship with a militant suffragette. At times, the layering of issues (racism, feminism, class, capitalism, post-traumatic stress disorder) threatens to destabilise the story. In particular, the counterpointing of suffrage speeches with war scenes comes across as intellectually coherent but feels emotionally off-kilter. The women and the men may be oppressed by the same politico/military/economic establishment, but the situation of the soldiers appears more dreadful. This clumsiness of construction does not detract from the overall impact of the piece, though, especially since so many of these issues continue to confront us today.
In a powerful, eight-strong ensemble, Nathan Ives-Moiba makes an outstanding professional debut in the lead role; Marc Small convinces equally as his father and his brother; Fiona Hampton is tough and touching as landlady/lover/suffragette.In a powerful, eight-strong ensemble, Nathan Ives-Moiba makes an outstanding professional debut in the lead role; Marc Small convinces equally as his father and his brother; Fiona Hampton is tough and touching as landlady/lover/suffragette.
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