The Beautiful Game

About the show

Act One Football is part of everyday life in 1960s and 1970s Northern Ireland, as the overture and opening number ("The Beautiful Game") demonstrate. It is especially important for Father O'Donnell's team, who are having their first practice on the first day of the season. The star player, John Kelly, seems to be a little more interested in one of the girls on the sidelines than he is in the priest, and as a punishment is forced to stay behind and take care of the equipment ("Clean the Kit"). Meanwhile, Thomas, a fervent Irish Catholic nationalist leads a group of thugs to force Del off the team. Mary, the girl John had been noticing during the practice, comes to the locker room to talk to him. Although they initially fight their attraction (Don't Like You), they soon decide to give it a try. Time passes. John and Mary are quite serious with each other now. She asks him one evening to join her in a civil rights march but he is more interested in going drinking with his friends. Left alone, Mary is unable to understand why anyone would not love Ireland and want to make it better. Her sentiments are echoed - almost - by a girl with the rival Protestant team ("God's Own Country"). John changes his mind and returns to go to the march with Mary, because she is more important to him ("God's Own Country", "Protestant March"). The team makes it to the final, but their celebration is cut short when a group of Protestants trash the locker room. Christine and Del emerge to find the wreckage - they had been making love in hiding during the raid. Surveying the mess, they both wish all the fighting would stop so they could get on with their lives ("Let Us Love in Peace"). It comes down to the final. After the other team tied the goal on a penalty shot, John scores the winning goal ("The Final"). The boys celebrate at a local pub ("Off to the Party, The Craic"). Del comes to see Christine, but Thomas and his friends quickly remind him that he isn't welcome. Rather than causing any more unpleasantness, he leaves. Meanwhile, Ginger has finally got up the nerve to speak to Bernadette, who returns his affection ("Don't Like You Reprise"). They have a first, small kiss, and then she has to go, and Ginger helps Daniel home. After seeing him to his door, Ginger is about to head home himself when he's confronted by a gang of Protestant thugs. He attempts, unsuccessfully, to escape. Christine and Mary are discussing the previous evening at Mary's house. Mary disapproves of the relationship with Del until Christine convinces her that love knows no boundaries ("Our Kind of Love"). They are interrupted by John who brings the horrible news - Ginger is dead. Thomas arrives and asks John to go with them to get revenge, but he refuses - more violence won't do any good. As they comfort each other and go to the funeral, they all long for an end to the division and for a chance to live a normal life ("Let Us Love in Peace Reprise"). Act Two John and Mary are getting married, and there are some nerves on all sides ("The Happiest Day"). When the time comes to make their vows though, there are no doubts ("To Have and to Hold"). Finally, they are left alone in their hotel room for their first night together. Both are nervous, but together they work it out ("The First Time"). In the middle of the night, the phone rings. It's Thomas, in trouble. He asks for John's help. Mary doesn't want him to go, but John feels he owes it to his friend even though he doesn't agree with what he's doing. He finally finds Thomas and tells him it's the only time he'll ever do something like this. Thomas tries to explain to him why he has to do what he does ("I'd Rather Die on My Feet Than Live on My Knees"). John is finally going to get his big break at the football trials. On her way to watch, Mary says goodbye to Christine and Del, who are moving to New York to escape the situation there. Mary figures she and John will go to England, and they talk about leaving their home ("God's Own Country Reprise"). John makes a great impression and the coaches want him, but someone else wants him too - the police. Someone has tipped them off and he is taken to prison, before Mary even has a chance to tell him that she's pregnant ("The Selection"). John is put with the other IRA prisoners. He tries to stay apart from them, but they work away at him and eventually he begins to think like them. Even Mary has trouble getting through to him. ("Dead Zone"). She has her baby, a boy named Sean, and Daniel comes over to visit. While he's there, Thomas and two other IRA agents barge in and accuse Daniel of betraying John. They shoot him in the knee, crippling him. Mary is horrified and wonders if any good could possibly come out of all this violence ("If This is What We're Fighting For"). John is finally released, and his first stop is to see Thomas, because he has realized that it was Thomas who turned him over to the police. After confronting him, John kills him. Mary enters. She tries to find the man within John that she fell in love with, but he is buried too deep. John is going to England to work for the IRA. He leaves his soccer jersey and a picture of the championship team for his son ("All the Love I Have"). As Father O'Donnell comes to collect Sean for the football practice, Mary hopes that the cycle of hate can be stopped with her son ("Finale"). Act One The Boys in the Photograph begins with Mary, Christine and Bernadette singing the titular number ("The Boys in the Photograph") in front of a monochrome photograph of the Belfast soccer team that is the focus of the play. After this the majority of the casts join in a number about the importance of soccer or football in the lives of the young people of Belfast, Northern Ireland which is currently on the brink of a cultural war. After this Father O'Donnell begins the roll call for the football team including: John Kelly, the team's star player who is more interested in showing off in front of girls than practicing seriously; Thomas Malloy, John's best friend, who is more driven, a fervent Catholic nationalist who wears glasses (which need to be taped to his head while playing and are referred to multiple times during the play); Del Copeland, the only Protestant on the team (who states he is an atheist); Daniel Gillen, who has a reputation of stealing radios from cars (though he argues that with so many riots taking place it only makes sense to steal the radios before the cars are burnt), and Ginger O'Shaughnessy, who wants the conflicts between Protestants and Catholics to end and to be called by his real name (Gregory). We also meet Mary a bright out-spoken young woman who believes that the conflict can be resolved through peaceful protests; Bernadette, a very religious and prudent girl who has been in love with Ginger since they were children; and Christine, who defies her Catholic up-bringing not only by going with several boys but also by the man she marries later on. After the practice Father O'Donnell gives each member of the team a copy of the team photograph along with the lecture to "…Never forget the promise of your youth. This picture is who you are, who you become is up to you". He puts John on equipment cleaning duty, much to John's annoyance ("Cleaning Kit"). While John is imagining his future as the star player for a national team, Mary walks in and tells him that he'll never make a national team since he spends too much time chasing girls. Father O'Donnell then enters the locker room and tells John that the reason he's harder on him is because he believes that John could be great if he focuses on his game and that there will be plenty of time for girls once he's famous and can have any kind of girl he wants (to the disgust of Mary, who is hiding nearby as girls aren't allowed in the locker room). John and Mary further argue with each other ("Don't Like You") and eventually grow close and fall in love. Meanwhile, Thomas, along with a couple of nameless teammates, threaten Del with violence if he comes to practice again. (Thomas has no tolerance for Protestants after one beat up his sister; this also provides a hint of things to come). Eventually Mary and John are in a steady relationship with one another and although at first he does not want to join her in civil rights demonstrations, being more interested in having fun with his teammates leaving Mary disappointed, not only with John but with her neighbours' defeatist attitude ("God's Own Country/God's Own Country", "Protestant March"). John eventually comes around and decides that he at least should be there for Mary. Meanwhile, Christine and Del have had their own romantic encounter having both taken shelter in an abandoned car during a raid and discovering that despite their different backgrounds that they have a lot in common ("Born In Belfast"). Eventually the final game of the season comes and the team has a chance to win the championship ("The Final"), and despite Thomas being caught by the referee for tripping a member of the other team giving them a penalty kick, John manages to score the winning goal. After their victory the team and their supporters go celebrate at the local pub ("Off To The Party"/"The Craic"). Del and Christine also go to the party though Thomas makes it clear that they aren't welcome while John wonders where he's been all season and despite Christine's insistence that Del has as much of a right to be there as any other member of the team, Del insists that they should leave to avoid causing any trouble. At the same time Ginger and Bernadette begin to realize their feelings for each other, their shared wishes for peace and kiss for the first time ("Let Us Love In Peace"). However, after the party Ginger helps Daniel home and on the way back to his own home, is mortally wounded by a gang of young Protestants and is unable to get away.