David Peace’s 2013 novel Red or Dead, featuring his controversially repetitive writing style, may at first glance feel a risky choice for stage adaptation, but there is a successful precedent in the stage version of his earlier and similar novel The Damned Utd. In this new play written for Liverpool’s Royal Court, adapter/director Phillip Breen has very much featured that stylistic eccentricity, and in so doing has created something that is simultaneously dramatic and hypnotic.
In fact “Repetition, Repetition, Repetition” becomes a clearly stated and almost (but not quite) infuriating recurring theme, mirroring the dogged determination of the novel’s subject, Bill Shankly. Peace’s fictionalised account of the man’s journey with Liverpool Football Club begins as a beleaguered LFC’s recently appointed chair Tom Williams approaches Shankly with the offer of an appointment, and follows him to his shock retirement 15 years later, and beyond.
Breen’s most audacious step is putting over 50 performers on stage—12 professional actors and a community chorus making up the rest of the cast—but it pays off in spades by creating an electric atmosphere and allowing for much of his clever use of the allegory offered by Peace’s writing.
The litany of footballing history facts and match statistics is delivered like poetry, and is punctuated not only by cleanly dramatic scenes but also some almost ethereal interludes involving music, from laments sung by Shankly’s wife Ness to the now iconic Merseyside anthems from the Kop. In different hands the repeated phrases might become cloying, but in a masterstroke of metaphor, Breen mirrors Shankly’s tactical obsession with passing from red shirt to red shirt by having the players pass the spoken lines from one to another, and our ears follow the thread every bit as carefully as our eyes would follow the ball. This isn’t where the parallels end, however. The entire ensemble move and perform as a single unit, emphasising Shankly’s philosophy that football is not about individuals, and that LFC is not about either him or the players, but about the single entity formed by the team and its fans.
There are many strong performances among the cast, but obvious top billing goes, despite the character’s self-effacing personality, to Peter Mullan, who makes a long awaited return to the stage as Bill Shankly himself. Mullan shapes his performance beautifully, from the canny Scot negotiating his appointment to the man struggling to find an identity after retirement. Opposite and beside him is Allison McKenzie, in fine voice as Ness. Paul Duckworth delivers a collection of often humorous characters from Roy Plomley to Brian Clough, Les Dennis rolls two chairmen Tom Williams and John Smith almost into one, and Dickon Tyrrell cuts a diplomatic figure as Bob Paisley, navigating his way around the awkward revolving door of Shankly’s departure. Keith Fleming brings us the ultimately tragic figure of Jimmy McInnes, while Matthew Devlin, George Jones, Oliver Mawdsley, and Liam Powell-Berry multi-role to offer strongly drawn character studies of many of the key team players.
Max Jones’ set design is at once minimalist and monumental, paring back the Court’s stage to allow for the large cast to have maximum visual impact but also offering a massive structure to the rear, giving us the feel of the terraces and stands of the various stadia depicted.
There are moments where it can feel that the play’s lengthy structure could collapse under the weight of the sheer volume of its words, but these are few and far between. The poetry of the text and the rhythmic, almost religious, chant-like delivery speaks of the reverence felt for a game, for a club, and for a man, all of whom are as much a part of Liverpool’s soul as the Mersey itself. You don’t necessarily need to be a fan of football in general or LFC in particular to feel the passion of it.
Red or Dead plays at Liverpool’s Royal Court until 19th April, with tickets available here.
Star Rating 4 stars
The cast of Red or Dead - Picture by Atanas Paskalev
This review was originally written for publication by Good News Liverpool
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