Jacks Ashes.
The Tabard Theatre
Bath Road,
Chiswick, London W4.
🍷🍷🍷🍷 🧃 4 and an end of innings lemonade out of 5.
https://tabard.org.uk/whats-on/jacks-ashes/
It could have been all balls, bales and googlies and I was worried about being caught out leg behind wicket with this new solo cricket offering from Tim Marriott. Because I know nothing about cricket… indeed I am spectacularly bad at nearly all sports. But I needn’t have worried. The sublime Marriott serves this tale of friendship, failure and the need for men to speak out with a straight bat!
We find ourselves in the dressing room of a charity cricket match – The Gary Browne Memorial T20 (It’s a cricket match. No idea what a T20 is. You won’t need to know!) And as all good drama should, Marriott presents the entertaining and often very funny and moving story of Jack ‘Mazza’ Mason, former professional cricketer and now coach of the team, with his usual verve and skill. Although he’s not alone on stage. He address the absent ‘Lightning’ and is visited by various voices and memories – not least the voice of his old mentor ‘Bumpy’ Williams.
In fact, for a solo show it’s quite complicated technically, with video and sound throughout. But it’s from the UK Solo Show Stable of Excellence. Tim had commercial success on TV with The Brittas Empire, but his recent solo shows are notoriously excellent. And he lists the brilliant Nicholas Collett as helping with development. And his own sons appear in the video at the start along with some famous cricketing names.
Lines like “Don’t count the days – make the days count.” And the notion of “we should all be kinder to each other” are takeaways from this excellent hour. Respect to the Australian Cricket establishment and Arts Council England for supporting this production, written by Marriott and former professional cricketer Matt Barnes and directed by Hannah Maxwell and Annabel Fen Marriott.
It’s a completely contemporary piece that completely speaks to today. It’s never preachy and I hope the English Cricket authorities are as supportive as the Aussies have been. Tell your favourite sports fan to get to The Tabard and see it before they run out of overs and the game ends.
WINNER – Best Theatre Award, Adelaide Fringe 23.
