Total Football @ The Barbican

"If our plays have a common theme, you could say it is identity," says the programme for Total Football, the latest production from theatre company Ridiculusmus. And it's a theme that holds incredibly true here, Total Football acting as a wonderfully inventive commentary on modern British life.

And despite the play being called Total Football, in many ways, it is not so much a production specifically about football, but more specifically, the part the sport plays in the lives of those involved with it - right from the top executives to the humble fans. As the play puts it at one point, it brings everyone together in one big 'tribe'.

Total Football centres around the head of an Olympic committee responsible for putting together a British football team for the 2012 competition and his attempts to convey the passion of the game to his football illiterate sub-ordinate. Cue much humour over misunderstanding of the offside rule and who exactly, Wayne Rooney, is.

Fundamentally, it's a play about race, diversity, and everything in between - even finding time to cover the hapless sub-ordinate's infertility and marriage problems. Indeed, for a comedy, it's here that we see the humour at its blackest. There's a melancholy to some of the scenes that speaks for every fractious part of modern life.

On the whole though, the play remains distinctly upbeat and fast-paced - genuinely firing off a gag-a-minute. Situated in the Babican's stark Pit theatre, the audience was small but intimate; in stitches throughout the performance.

The small setting at times also lent the play the nature of a TV sketch show - the players walked on and off from a series of bright yellow doors on either side of a bland office. Everything we see takes place within these three small walls - us, the audience, acting as the fourth wall. As if to reinforce the utter normal-ness of the setting, the harsh fluorescent glow of the overhead lights flickered from time to time.

And this wasn't the only marked manipulation of light in the show - in most theatre performances, even with the lights down fully, there's still a dim ambient glow by which you can make out your immediate surroundings. But in Total Football, 'lights down' meant a complete, total, pitch black; thus allowing props to be dragged and thrown on stage in the middle of the non-stop performance.

Weighing in at 70 minutes with no interval, the speed and snappiness of the play felt very much in the vein of the football matches it dealt with. At one particularly effective moment, the lights flick on just for a few seconds, and we see a football bouncing slowly on stage - solitary and alone. It's a surprisingly chilling moment.

Total Football often seems to paint Britain as a heavily itemised culture - we see a foreign cleaner reading up on his UK citizenship test (the book is then promptly ripped up), or a football itself (at one point nearly kicked into the audience). The notion that comes across is of a material, but incredibly disposable world - it also helps to convey just how much of a 'physical' play Total Football is.

This culminates in the play's most shocking development, where the stage completely destroys itself, collapsing inwards with an immense bang, rush of air and explosion of swirling paper. It's a real visual spectacle and one that amusingly had numerous audience members crying out in surprise.

Coming at the moment where the play's two key characters lose their jobs, the aftermath of this destructive incident sees them sat under an umbrella, fishing, cans of Carling by their side. Just with football itself, this image becomes another utterly British representation of life. But instead of the cause for celebration and togetherness the two executives are so keen for the Great British football team to symbolise, the two men are now left completely alone and desolate.

"Are you laughing or crying? I can't tell" says one, reaching out his fishing pole to prod his colleague's shoulder. Turning to face him, the other replies "Did you just try to comfort me with a fishing rod?" - These lines make for an incredibly touching yet altogether bleak ending to the play, a perfect summary of the awkwardness the British individual is so often characterised as possessing.

As the two men speculate over the apparent benefits of lobotomising themselves so they can't comprehend the future, it is left with us, the audience to look forward to 2012, and all that it might hold for Britain. Total Football stands as a wonderfully funny and thoroughly modern stance on what exactly 'Britishness' is - and all this from a cast of precisely two men, Jon Haynes and David Woods.

Indeed, it is their capacity to embody a multitude of diverse characters from which so much of the enjoyment here stems from. A play of identity, but also one of the differences that separate each and every one of us as individuals, Total Football is an exciting, thought-provoking slice of contemporary drama.

The BBC drama department delivers the goods once again with 'Exile'

John Simm, for me, stands as one of the greatest actors of our generation. Charming the nation with his inspired portrayal of The Master in Doctor Who as well as his staring role in Life on Mars, there's something about him that effortlessly portrays a mix of the everyman and a deeper, darker mysteriousness. And it's these qualities he brings so well to new drama Exile, the story of a son returning home after losing his job to find his father has dementia.

The show's opening was disorientating, snapshots and visual memories offering us a glimpse into the life of Tom (Simm's character) as his work life fell to ruin about him. Breaking free from his high-up role on a glossy men's magazine, he storms off up the motorway in his flashy sportscar, the rain pouring down outside, the scenery becoming ever more grey.

It's easy to bandy around the word 'gritty' about drama series like this, but Exile's strengths come from its grittyness being precisely more than that. It doesn't feel artificial in the slightest, instead the lives unfolding in front of us are profoundly real. From Tom's sister Nancy (a source of brilliant comic relief throughout the episode) to his old school mate, there is always a sense that you could just as easily find yourself amongst these characters yourself. They're wonderfully understated; no over the top personalities or quirky character traits here - only the hum-drum facts of every day life. People get on with the duties and work assigned to them, day in, day out - monotony is a fact of life.

And it's the coping with these realities that form the backbone of Exile, for Tom's father is afflicted with Alzheimer's. Initially unable to cope with the man's debilitating illness, Tom is driven to frustration and drink. This is his escape, just as he escaped as a young man, leaving for London. And it's not just Tom that we see this frustration in - a local barmaid practically throws herself on him, eager for the excitement her stale marriage is clearly not providing. And in a brilliant twist, we later find out that this barmaid is the wife of Tom's old school friend. As you can imagine, sparks fly.

It's almost a shame Tom and his old friend fall out in a way, as their scenes of re-union - going for a drink and fish and chips - revelling in old memories, catching up and sharing their troubles is genuinely moving. It's a moment of genuine man to man openness; a glimpse of softness in a harsh world.

From this first episode, you got the distinct impression Exile was firmly within the walls of family drama; dealing with the effects of disability. Indeed, the complexities of Tom and his father's relationship provided the foundation for so much of this episode. But towards the end, the show felt as if it was rapidly growing towards a thriller, suggesting crime elements would be forthcoming in later episodes. It was a shocking turn, backed up on detective-like work as Tom uncovered old documents regarding a local council boss in his father's office.

I guess the question now is whether the show will be able to balance the two distinct brands of drama equally, or if it will abandon one to thoroughly pursue the other. Either way, this episode got things off to a cracking start and I eagerly await the conclusion.

Incidentally, if the character of Tom's father (played so wonderfully by Jim Broadbent) has piqued your interest in dementia and you want to find out more about the condition, the Maria Mallaband Care Group have come up with this rather handy info-graphic, the full version of which can be viewed on their website.