The Nottingham Television Workshop, famed for nurturing many local actors, is launching a play about Notts County FC and fans. You can't get more local than that...
Sat in front of a mock up stand based on a block from Meadow Lane’s vociferous Kop end, you could almost smell the Pukka pies and Bovril wafting through a packed audience. The brainchild of writer Ali Rashley after she kickstarted 2026 by watching Notts County with her husband play the fabled Accrington Stanley (‘Ian Rush drinks it’) - this heartwarming, yet earthy homage to the match-going fan proves a real treat for any one with affection for the Magpies or match day culture in general.
Hitting all the commonplace, yet completely accurate touchstones that congregate in any football following thrown together due to the serendipity of simply choosing a seat, this production, which is being performed over two nights by current and former students at The Television Workshop, is witty, well-observed and heart-warming in equal measure.
So, you have the resident statto, dishing out geeky analysis at will, the superstitious fan who has to have the same people sat in the same seats or bad luck will rain down on his team to the resourceful fan who plies those in and around her with pies, sausage rolls and last night’s lasagne and the optimistic teenager who drags his reluctant (and increasingly truculent) girlfriend along for the ride.
fervent airings of the team’s best known chants are aired
The drama follows the plight of the team through a league match against East Midlands’ rivals Grimsby Town as they attempt to scramble out of League Two and features a smattering of memorable events harvested from across the season including a comical sending off for a player who lobbed an opposition’s boot off the pitch.
As the team plunder into a 0-2 deficit, the action cuts to the screen behind the stand where Workshop alumni like Joe Dempsie, Michael Socha and Aisling Loftus make up the expletive laden management team while Vicky McClure provides the match announcements. The action swings to and from the stand to the bench while fervent airings of the team’s best known chants are aired.
The writing is whip smart, authentic and delivered with charm and authority throughout, which only makes this charity-funded drama school which has supported and nurtured the cast, even more impressive and vital.If we are to continue to try to break the glass ceiling into the increasingly privileged sphere of acting, then more light needs to be shone onto the crucial work the workshop does.
As Notts sneak a 2-2 draw, the evening climaxes with footage from Wembley in May when the Pies won promotion back to League One for the first time in over a decade. The timing of this production then is perfect - hopefully, like their trademark anthem, I Had A Wheelbarrow will get another hearty airing soon.
I Had A Wheelbarrow from the Television Workshop played at the Nest on Monday 15 and Tuesday 16 of June 2026.
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