First Touch

The Times Clive Davies

The stage becomes a wide-open football terrace with a crush barrier from the days before all-seater stadiums. Just to remind us which era we are revisiting in Nathaniel Price’s study of sexual abuse, a large portrait of Margaret Thatcher is affixed to a backdrop of typically garish period wallpaper.

Jeff James’s production and Charlotte Espiner’s design adeptly evoke the world of the aspiring professional players of yesteryear. A digital stopwatch ticks away in the background and the relatives of the young central character, Clayton — convincingly played by Raphael Akuwudike in his professional stage debut — are dragooned into training sessions.