You expect to leave a show that has Beckham in the title thinking about football. But this musical version of the 2002 hit movie is deeper, funnier and, yes, more important than that. It leaves you feeling good about something that we are constantly told to feel bad about: immigration.
The ethnic minority at the centre of this story by Paul Mayeda Berges and director Gurinder Chadha (who also directed the film) is an Indian Sikh. Jess (a sweet and charming Natalie Dew) has a Beckhamesque talent for the beautiful game. Spotted by fellow girl player Jules (Lauren Samuels here, Keira Knightley in the film), Jess becomes the star player in the local women's team.
This is not the future imagined by her traditionalist parents who want her to follow her older sister's example and marry a nice Indian boy. No, it is not a ground-breaking plot. But composer Howard Goodall (perhaps the best writer of melody in British musical theatre working today) and lyricist Charles Hart attach real wit to a script which, with way too much talk of "following your dream" flirts, indeed consummates, with cliché.
Chadha's attempts to stage football are ropy. There are some few keepie uppie skills and when Jess bends it, a wobbly ball on a wire flies through the air like a boomerang.
But what matters is this show's optimistic heart. The action is set in Southall, which, according to first-generation immigrants in saris is a "little bit Punjab" and according to the youngest generation in hoodies and heels, is "a little bit UK." And without papering over English prejudice encountered by the community, there is room also for a sentiment often expressed by that generation of British Jews whose lives were immeasurably improved, as well as saved, by moving to the UK: gratitude.
"England has been good to us," says Jess's dad, a line that receives multiple nods from her extended family of uncles and aunts. They live in a Britain not defined by the dysfunctional busted flush of multi-culturalism, but joined at the hip and heart by what feels like cultural fusion. A good thing. And a terrific, joyous little show.
