It’s been an interesting journey for Alex Hill’s solo play inspired by the viral incident described in the title – Why I Stuck A Flare Up My Arse For England.
Starting at the Old Red Lion, London, then Edinburgh Fringe in 2023, the play is now coming to the end of a ‘Farewell Tour’ with this one-off West End performance, and a final show off-Broadway at SoHo Playhouse.
Why I Stuck A Flare … explores football fan culture, mob mentality and tribalism. Young Billy Kinley – not the name of the real-life fan, or his story – becomes consumed by hero-worship, drug-taking, and inner frustration.
Under Sean Turner’s direction, Hill’s performance is personable and engaging, despite some of his character’s reprehensible actions and choices.
The ‘bum flare’ event takes place at the start of the play, so if you come late – as one group of the audience did last night – too bad. Hill also used the disruption for an amusing recap of the show so far.
The play is about Billy and his childhood friend, Adam, who starts to drift out of the boozing and brawling driven by their new acquaintance ‘Winegum’. He prefers splitting skulls to celebrating goals to impress his power on to others.
There’s a girl, too, Daisy, who captures shy Billy’s heart and even takes him off – on a match day – to the theatre to see Les Miserables. Hill’s play tackles the space of peer pressure, toxic masculinity, and “feeling like a king”.
Although the football angle is a generalisation – of course not all fans are cocaine-snorting troublemakers – it seems right to give Why I Stuck A Flare … its finale during World Cup fever.
The play is very much about finding a place that feels right for Billy – after his mum’s death and feeling trapped in a boring job, he’s just the person to be impressed by power being thrown his way.
That it takes one tragic event to bring him fully back offers a poignant close to the proceedings – perhaps easy to guess, but still a hammer blow.
Hill’s heavily physical and emotional performances gives Why I Stuck A Flare … interest beyond its title. The flare is incidental – the theme is universal. And Hill’s play has had much more than a ‘good shot’.
I’m giving this 4 stars.
Why I Stuck A Flare Up My Arse For England had its final UK performance last night at the Garrick Theatre.
Photo credit: Rah Petherbridge