Cricket takes centre stage

Sussex skipper Chris Adams with the cast of First XI (photo: The Argus, Brighton)

British drama has rarely drawn on cricket for inspiration, but a new play uncovers a link with a less conservative activity. Steve Beauchampé reports for BBC Sport Online.

It is hard to imagine a part-time lap-dancer ever making it into the England cricket team.

But in the fictional world of Little Waltham cricket club, such things can happen.

Cricket has rarely been a source of inspiration for stage dramatists.

The structure of cricket lends itself well to the stage

Playwright Andrew Fitzpatrick

Outside Edge by Richard Harris, which was later converted into a TV series, and Terence Rattigan's The Final Test are perhaps the best known pieces in what is a very limited genre.

Now, however, the imaginary lives of the Little Waltham players are centre stage, for two nights only, at Brighton's Komedia Club.

The First Eleven marks the play-writing debut of Andrew Fitzpatrick, head of Drama at Blatchington Mill School, and is a comedy telling the story of a village team who win the chance to play a one-day game against the touring Australians.

"Blatchington has special status as a centre for the performing arts and working with an all male group of sixth form drama students, says Fitzpatrick.

"I was searching for an idea that would both appeal to the company and translate easily to public performance.

"The structure of cricket lends itself well to the stage as, although it's a team game, it's based upon individual duels easily isolated from the wider action and provides the characters with regular entrances and exits.

School beginnings

"The play helps give the company an understanding of togetherness," the writer continues.

"Its role playing, and games, form an important part of the male psyche, providing the framework of order and regulation men seem to need."

The playbills draw inspration from James Bond

Written in November 2001, the 60-minute play was originally performed in the school auditorium, where a couple of watching Komedia members realised it was ideally suited to their venue.

"I describe it as a joyful celebration of friendship, cricket and lap dancing." says Fitzpatrick.

The play centres on Little Waltham's preparations for the game, after their captain George MacDuff wins a radio quiz competition to find a team to play the Aussies in a warm-up for the Ashes series.

But where does the lap-dancing come in?

"Flatley, one of their players, is a lap-dancer by profession, a device that allows us to introduce the element of dance, something that is symbiotic with cricket.

"Some sports are hard to recreate on stage but, as a non-contact sport, cricket is quite abstract and its physicality resembles dance," says Fitzpatrick.

"Sure, some of Flatley's moves are a bit naughty, but we use movement in other ways.

"For instance, the play opens to Booker T's Soul Limbo, BBC television's cricket theme music, with the percussion breaks choreographed with ball polishing.

"The tune's climax follows a slow motion catching sequence."

Professional debut

It is the relationship between Greg, a lightning fast, if somewhat wayward, bowler and MacDuff on which much of the plot centres.

"It encapsulates a crucial element of the whole play, about the little man striving to do something extraordinary, in a world where such efforts are usually destined for glorious failure," Fitzpatrick adds.

The real Little Waltham team will attend the opening night

Since the initial school performances, it has become a case of art imitating life, with the discovery that there is a real Little Waltham club in Essex, which was formed 218 years ago.

"Some of their representatives will be in the audience at Komedia, along with several Sussex players, including skipper Chris Adams, who helped with our publicity."

For the cast, Komedia constitutes their first professional performances.

"Whether any of them either will - or wish to - become actors, it provides an opportunity for them to discover more about the profession," says Fitzpatrick.

The only remaining question is whether the play will bowl over the critics.