Preview: Coming Home at Newcastle Newgate

Coming Home – When the Beautiful Game Turns Ugly

Brawn Theatre: Coming Home

Newcastle Newgate Social,

Wednesday 30 - Thursday 31 July 2025

Football, relationships, and the messy space in between take centre stage in Coming Home, the latest play from writer-performer Christopher Wollaton. This powerful two-hander—starring Wollaton alongside Lucy Farrar, and directed by Michael Parker—is set to tour intimate venues across the UK from July to November 2025. Raw, relevant and emotionally charged, Coming Home is more than a play about sport; it’s a revealing, painfully honest exploration of love, control, and toxic masculinity.

Set within the charged atmosphere of an England football match, Coming Home follows couple Jack and Suzie as they watch the game at home. At first, the mood is light—Jack belts out the national anthem, drinks flow, and Suzie does her best to play along with her football-mad partner. But as the game intensifies and Jack’s drinking spirals, so too does the tension between them. What starts as harmless banter unravels into something far more disturbing—an all-too-familiar story of emotional volatility, repressed intimacy, and the isolating fear of being stuck in a toxic cycle.

Through cleverly layered scenes that drift between England's infamous matches in 1998 and 2021, the play reveals a haunting truth: Jack and Suzie aren’t just stuck in an evening—they’re trapped in a time loop of expectation, frustration, and dysfunction. The script masterfully juxtaposes the highs and lows of national football mania with the intimate, often ignored heartbreak playing out behind closed doors.

Wollaton’s Jack is intense, infantile, and heartbreakingly believable—desperate for both his team and his relationship to give him something he can’t name. Farrar’s Suzie, in contrast, is grounded and quietly powerful. Her performance brims with authenticity, portraying a woman grappling with love, fear, and the crushing weight of unmet expectations. Together, they capture the claustrophobic reality of a relationship cracking under pressure.

What makes Coming Home especially poignant is its reflection of real-world dynamics. Behind the laughs and beer-soaked chants is a sobering message about the emotional labour often expected of women, and how football culture—while celebrated—can serve as a vessel for deeper issues around anger, identity, and abuse.

The play, designed for studio and intimate spaces, offers a “fly-on-the-wall” insight into a moment many will recognise but few speak about. With minimal set, tight direction, and a sharp script, Coming Home invites the audience into a living room filled with hope, frustration, and ultimately, a painful reckoning.

Fans of Wollaton’s previous work (Brawn) will recognise his talent for dissecting masculinity with nuance and urgency. Coming Home is no exception—sharp, funny, and deeply unsettling, it shines a light on the darker corners of domestic life.

Running just over an hour with no interval and aimed at audiences 16+ (due to swearing, sexual themes, and depictions of emotional abuse), Coming Home is not just a play—it’s a conversation starter.

Tickets: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/newcastle-fringe-festival/brawn-theatre-coming-home-theatre/e-zoqlgb