It’s hard to think of something less on trend than a play about nine men hitting each other. But here they are, with Shady Murphy’s matriarch in tow as the lone woman, pummelling their way through Jamie McGough’s true-life family drama about boxing.
The first-time playwright is a relative of Sean, Martin, Jarlath and Jimmy McGough, four boxing brothers from an Irish Catholic family brought up in Coventry.
In 1979, Jarlath was in line to successfully defend his title as Irish light-heavyweight champion, but as the play tells it, faced resistance from officials who had a grudge against English-born competitors. A decision by the referee to disqualify him in the crucial bout sparked a riot and a court case – with Jarlath and Martin in the dock.
So far so Rocky, but McGough adds a political edge by framing the story in its historical context. Christian James plays Sean as a young firebrand more obsessed with the campaign for Irish unification than he is with boxing, despite his own skill in the sport. The treatment of the brothers – too Irish to be English, too English to be Irish – stands as a metaphor for the historical sidelining of Catholics in Northern Ireland.
This was not just a sporting defeat, McGough argues, but a symbol of how the underdog is victimised over and over again.
In this way, the play swings from ringside tournament to courtroom drama, intercut with nationalist speechifying as McGough keeps us up to speed with the intersection of sectarianism and sport. It’s a lot for the playwright to tackle and it isn’t certain that this family anecdote, however fascinating, can carry as much weight as he wants it to. The story remains more particular than universal.
What is not ambiguous is the brute force of Corey Campbell’s excellent production. Performed in the round on Patrick Connellan’s ringside set, in the style of Claire Luckham’s wrestling play Trafford Tanzi and Nick Ahad’s Glory, it has an exhilarating physicality. The good-looking cast stomp, punch and sing their way through a rigorously choreographed show, precisely lit by Joe Hornsby, with Louis Ellis’s Jarlath and Daniel Krikler’s Martin as convincing in their boxing moves as they are touching in their dedication to sporting honour.
Fighting Irish is at Belgrade theatre, Coventry, until 16 April.
