The first play in the National's Transformation season is 34-year-old Roy Williams's Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads. It's the latest in his seven-year writing career (before that he was an actor) to use sport as the subject matter, this time the England-Germany World Cup qualifying match at Wembley, which England lost 1-0 and led to manager Kevin Keegan's shock resignation after the final whistle. "I have a sad addiction to football," Williams, a Queen's Park Rangers supporter admits, "but I was useless at it at school. Although in my head I was fantastic, of course."
In fact, the play deals with matters other than sport, specifically, racism and what it means to be British for black and white football supporters alike. The play grew out of an incident that occurred when Williams, who was born in Birmingham to Jamaican parents, was watching an England match in a pub in Welling, Kent.
"We were supporting England, but my mate and I were made to feel very uncomfortable," he says. "Nothing obvious, but we were definitely not welcome."
Williams's new play is in keeping with his fondness for adopting contemporary themes to tackle big issues, a quality that led to his being named Best Newcomer in last year's Evening Standard Drama Awards for his play Clubland, which uses the club generation's lifestyle to examine sexual politics. It was, said one of the judging panel, "impressive in its portrayal of men stuck in laddish culture and intercultural friendships".
