 The Beautiful Game
Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber; Lyrics by Ben Elton
Cambridge Theatre, London. September 26, 2000
Story
In Belfast, in the late 60s, a horde of keen adolescents play soccer.
Unhappily these matches are accompanied by locker-room religious skirmishes
which later develop into serious sectarian divisions, fatal attacks and
internment. The story traces the decline of the player's team after winning
the cup in 1969 and follows the members of the team and their various
fortunes: some get knee-capped or worse; others turn traitor or flee to
America. A Protestant is excluded from the Catholic team which meets under the
watchful eye of Father O'Donnell. This latter is a cleric who is football
mad. Del, the Protestant boy is brutally intimidated and expelled by Catholic
boys led by Thomas, who is clearly first-rate IRA material. It is not
long before masked Protestant bully-boys vandalise the team's dressing
rooms and, after the team wins the cup, another gang tortures and murders
Greg, a sweet-natured, ginger-haired tubby lad who has just had his first
kiss. Daniel starts stealing car radios and takes his first steps in drugs.
he sectarian criminal underworld culture of Northern Ireland is being
born.
The romantic heart of the story is about politically conscious Mary and
innocent, handsome, football-mad John, who almost gets to play for Everton
but is sucked into the conflict; and Christine, who marries Protestant
Del and receives vile abuse from other Catholic girls. The two leave,
with their baby, for America. And so the alternatives are: silence, exile
or killing.
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Musical Numbers:
 Overture - Orchestra- The Beautiful Game - Company
- Clean the Kit - John, Thomas, Mary, Cronies
- Don't Like You - Mary, John
- God's Own Country - Mary, Protestant Girl
- Let Us Love In Peace - Christine, Del
- A Game of Two Halves Company
- Off to the Party Team and Father O'Donnell
- The Craic Company
- Our Kind of Love - Christine
- The Happiest Day - John, Mary, and Father O'Donnell
- To Have and to Hold - John, Mary and Company
- The First Time - Mary, John
- I'd Rather Die On My Feet Than Live On My Knees - Thomas
- The Selection - John and Team
- Dead Zone - John and Internment Camp Inmates
- If This Is What we're Fighting For - Mary
- All the Love I Have - John, Mary
- Finale - Mary, Sean, Father O'Donnell & Company
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