The English summer of 2018 feels like a fever dream now. It was one of the hottest on record, and the last time we felt like a united country. Love Island was at its peak, watched and dissected by almost four million viewers, and in the World Cup, England made it all the way to the semi-finals. I’m smiling just thinking about it.
It’s these lazy, hazy, crazy days that the BBC’s latest drama, Dear England, wants to take us back to. Named after the letter then-England manager Gareth Southgate addressed to football fans amid the Covid pandemic and adapted from James Graham’s excellent, Olivier Award-winning play, the four-part series tells the story of how our football team went from national disappointment to a source of soaring pride.
As we see in the opening episode, Gareth Southgate took on the role as England’s manager – or rather, its caretaker-manager following Sam Allardyce’s scandal-ridden resignation – in 2016, and news clips from the time serve as a reminder of just how divided the nation was. The lead-up and aftermath of the Brexit referendum caused arguments about immigration, class and our cultural identity.
But Southgate – played as a wide-eyed, softly spoken optimist by Joseph Fiennes, who also played him in the National Theatre and West End productions – had a vision of a new England. Not just the football team, but the country itself. Dear England is peppered with inspirational quotes and motivational speeches from this fictional Southgate, whose vision of what our country could be – rather than what it was at the time – works to swell your heart with an all-too-rare national pride. It’s cheesy, yes, but it works.
