This working class cry of rage triumphs in communicating the fury of the forgotten in this updated version of the first part of duo Roy Williams’ and Clint Dyer’s state-of-the-nation trilogy.

2024 marks a decade since the original microplay Death of England was commissioned by The Guardian and The Royal Court. Then, concerns about Brexit and a question of what Britain was, were uppermost in the British psyche. Ten years later, Roy Williams’ and Clint Dyer’s one-man play still hits with a force that resonates beyond the stage.

Whilst we hear from Michael Fletcher (Coombes) throughout, it is his recently deceased father, Alan, whose voice seems loudest. His death forces Michael to confront who he is, and the answer is as profound as it is painful: a miasma of grief and rage, soaked in drugs and alcohol, using humour as a shield, forged in the shadow of a buttoned-up racist father, who only felt comfortable expressing emotions watching football. Coombes’ is an extraordinary performance which perfectly captures the helplessness of a man that hasn’t been taught the emotional intelligence required to communicate his hurt.

Williams’ and Dyer’s script feels like a cry of rage, a visceral and caustic anger of a white working class that has been sold a bag of goods by successive governments over decades. This is beautifully highlighted through the Fletcher family: Michael’s best friend is Delroy, a second generation British-Jamaican who is abused and loved by the Fletchers in equal measure. More subtly, Alan and Michael’s relationship to football at first feels like a proxy for British exceptionalism. It is only as the play continues that its true purpose, as one of the only anchors to the history of English working class identities, is revealed.

Benjamin Grant and Pete Malkin create a quite exceptional soundscape, with a constant thudding that feels simultaneously like a heartbeat and fists pounding against barriers. Combined with Jackie Shemesh’s claustrophobic lighting and Greenaway-Bailey and ULTZ’s stage, a giant red cross, the sense is that the idealised notion of England is a straitjacket which Michael can’t escape.

Death of England works because it veers away from lazy stereotypes about the working class, presenting them with an endearing honesty. Perhaps more important, it is a funny and hopeful play that suggests the past can define us without destroying our future.

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