A play that explains why England’s football team are so lousy: Dear England, at the Olivier Theatre, reviewed

James Graham’s entertaining new play looks at the England manager’s job. Everyone knows that coaching the national side is just a hobby. The boss picks the squad for a handful of fixtures each year and gives a pep talk at half-time followed by a post-match press conference. He’s spared the bother of speculating in the transfer market and he’s never troubled by verbal monsterings from foreign owners or irascible chairmen. And no salary ought to be paid because the incumbent is assured large earnings as a public speaker.

Graham’s play opens in 2016 with the appointment of Gareth Southgate, a dreamy weirdo from Sussex. Southgate was one of the best players Germany ever had. At Euro 96, he missed his kick during the penalty shoot-out and propelled the Germans into the finals which they won. He treats the England job as a chance to purge this awful memory from his tortured soul. A colossal blunder, as it turns out.

To deal with his players’ anxieties over penalties he keeps emphasising the emotion he wants to eradicate. Fear, fear, fear. He bangs on about it constantly. He’s helped by a nutty spiritualist, Doctor Pippa, who claims to be a woman of science but who spouts manifest absurdities. ‘Fear can cause your IQ to drop by 15 points,’ she says without offering evidence for this dotty assertion.

Under the regime of Southgate and Doctor Pippa, the team invest their time in navel-gazing exercises and emotional ruminations. Instead of practising football they fill up notepads with giddy jottings about their feelings. Transformed into a crew of simpering bridesmaids, they duly flop at tournament after tournament. They’re defeated in the world cups of 2018 and 2022. And in the final of Euro 2020 they play Italy to a 1-1 draw, so the match goes to penalties.