With the world cup looming, a satirical sports play that takes place in real time over one of the busiest hours in the football calendar has great timing. Shaun Cronin speaks to co-director and writer Matthew Gunn.
Transfer Deadline Day started as the brainchild of co-writer/directors Matthew J.Gunn and Tom Hall, produced in conjunction with Gunn’s production company Stray Monkey. Carrying on the tradition of successful ensemble plays such as David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross and the subtle comedy and misleading truths of The Producers, Transfer Deadline Day explores the seedy and comical exploits of the boardroom politics involved in a lower league football club trying to make the big time. I caught up with Matthew Gunn to discuss the creative process, future plans and, of course, football.
What was the inspiration behind the play?
It was the Dimitar Berbatov transfer story originally; images of him being smuggled into Manchester United’s stadium were like something out of a gangster film! From there it just started to develop from a funny conversation of "you could imagine a film of this..." to "let's actually do a play homage to transfer deadline day".
Could you elaborate on how the writing and casting process evolved?
The writing was interesting as I’m not usually a fan of co-writing as it’s very difficult to sit next to someone and just begin to write. However, myself and Tom managed to get together to work out a basic structure of a story. From there we wrote out our own separate versions then we merged the best elements of each other’s stories and went into detail on the characterisation.
It's essential as a writer to hear your dialogue read back by professional actors as early as possible in the drafting process so you can hear and see how characters interact and judge the pacing of the play accordingly. After the first read through, we did another rewrite and kept some of the actors from that first reading we liked and then started to cast the remainder of the roles. Once we finalised all roles, we started rehearsals whilst rewriting and editing the script along the way.
Has the current state of football on and off the field become one big pantomime?
I think the whole celebrity nature of players and their wives has turned into a soap opera, but the biggest pantomime I think is with the clubs - you look at the horror show of owners screwing over clubs and then trying to sell them on like equity. The media jumping on the whole player and their wives/girlfriend dramas, and to be honest the players seem to encourage it in order to get their 15 minutes of fame.
Do you think there’s an opening for football/sports-related comedies as theatre productions to do well?
I think Transfer Deadline Day is the first of its kind and as such has the potential to be the flag bearer for future sport comedies and show the theatre industry there is an immediate audience for such future sporting plays. It's got the potential to be huge and translate to other sports too. The comedy and love of the sports is endless. I believe you can put the drama of sport to any story because sport has all the classic ingredients within not just the actual professionals and their governing bodies but within us, the fans.
Do you think that the humour/subject of Transfer Deadline Day will appeal to people who have little to no interest in football?
I think so. The characters - though stereotypical in certain respects of being involved in football (star player, chairman, arrogant manager etc) - are also the same personalities we face in our normal work environment. I think Transfer Deadline Day's characters and narrative are very deep and rich enough in the metaphors of daily life. Also, the play is only an hour long - it plays in real time - and I think that in itself makes it interesting for theatre goers as it’s something different, something challenging, something new and original regardless off the nature of the story background.
Are there any future plans for Transfer Deadline beyond the theatre stage?
We have some future plans already in motion for it, one involves a mockumentary spin-off following dodgy agent Max Power during the week of transfer deadline day and we’re also looking to do a six-part 30-minute comedy mockumentary serial on him as he loses everything! Another idea is to actually have the play rewritten slightly for TV as a one-off drama, which would be part of a trilogy of football plays along with two of Ian Fleming’s (director of Dream Team football serial) football stories.
Transfer Deadline Day runs from 25th May – 30th May at The Old Courtyard Theatre.
Tickets and further info can be found here: www.transferdeadlineday.net
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