Dear England star Joseph Fiennes: ‘Gareth Southgate is a quiet revolutionary’

“Something definitely takes over me, in my body and my soul, when I watch England play.” 

James Graham’s introduction to football was Euro 96. So perhaps it’s no wonder he was captivated. The hope and excitement of a home tournament in England added to a heady mood of optimism in the country built on great weather, exciting new music and political change on the horizon. 

“I was not a massively sporty kid, apart from a brief foray into figure skating,” adds Sherwood writer Graham, who grew up near Nottingham’s famous ice rink. 

“I was nervous about what I perceived as the testosteroney, overly masculine world of football. That wasn’t my world; I did plays and drama. Yet there was something about the operatic, high-stakes nature of the tournament and how emotional I got.”

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Of course, for England fans, Euro 96 ended with defeat in a penalty shoot-out – Gareth Southgate’s poorly struck effort easily saved by Germany goalkeeper Andreas Kopkë. That moment stuck with the budding writer.

“Not to keep regurgitating Gareth’s trauma and pain, but I remember being very upset. I really thought England were going to win,” he says. “The stars were aligning. And when it was snatched away from us, I tried to process why I found it so painful. It’s basically storytelling. It’s pain – it’s people you like not getting what they want.”

Read more:

• Arsenal ‘starboy’ Bukayo Saka on playing football, beating trolls and offering a hand up
• Sherwood creator James Graham on class, Gareth Southgate and Britain’s ‘f**kload of problems’
• Ex-England star Alex Scott: ‘I went from playing football on my council estate to World Cups’

We are now as far from the hope of Euro 96 as that tournament was from the glory of 1966. For England’s men’s team, the years of hurt keep racking up. It’s at 60 now. But the manager who came closest to vanquishing the ghosts of football past is Gareth Southgate. 

And the playwright who created Dear England for the National Theatre stage in 2023 before adding extra time to turn Southgate’s story into a four-part series for BBC One, is the same boy so captivated by Euro 96. 

“When you do real-life stories, you have a responsibility to interrogate and prosecute as well as defend,” says Graham. “But with Gareth, it’s a love that’s only grown. And I can’t really hide it. It’s so obvious in the drama that I’m supportive of what he did. 

“Other people with a better tactical understanding of football might have misgivings about him as a strategist or in-game tactician, but the culture and environment he built, and what he stands for in terms of being a male role model, is really beautiful.”

More than just a game

There is a lot to unpack in Dear England. It’s a compelling story. Come for the football and Joseph Fiennes’s depiction of Southgate, stick around for the interrogation of the English mindset, exploration of modern masculinity, uncomfortable look at the racism faced by England’s black players and the attempt to update the narrative encapsulated in the old ‘two world wars and one world cup’ terrace chant.

Southgate is not the first name that springs to mind when considering English radicals. But during his tenure as England manager, he changed the culture in remarkable ways. From day one, his focus was on his players writing their own story, rather than being held back by our collective obsession with 1966 and all that. 

If England get close to winning another tournament, they will owe a debt of thanks to Southgate. Before he took over in 2016 England teams were stifled by fear.

“It’s about ghosts. Whether it’s individual ghosts like Gareth and his penalty miss and how he gets over it, the bigger implications of a colonial past, or the expectations of repeating 1966,” says Fiennes, who returns to the role after his acclaimed run in the stage production. “But all these things cripple you. And then there is the politics around national identity. When we were filming, we’d be driving at 4am to get to the set and there’d be roundabouts with the St George’s Cross newly painted on, which wasn’t there the night before. 

“And we were filming scenes about identity and what it means if you’re a second-generation player – how you connect with the country and the flag that has the ghosts and implications of all these other themes. And that’s why bringing in someone like Pippa Grange was the most miraculous thing he could do.” 

Jodie Whittaker takes on the role of psychologist Grange, who joined the team at Southgate’s insistence to help the players rewrite their story and conquer the fear of the penalty shootout. “When I had my meeting with Rupert [Goold] and Paul [Whittington], the directors and James [Graham], it was actually an offer – but I treated it like an audition,” says Whittaker. “I went in and said, do you know why I’m right for this? And I did this pitch about having spent my entire life with passionate men who were obsessed with football. My dad has watched Huddersfield Town his entire life – he’s got a brick from the old stadium when they knocked it down and turned it posh. 

“Then I married someone who’s completely obsessed and will fly anywhere for a USA national team game and is a huge Arsenal fan. I’ve found it one of the most beautiful languages you can speak. If you don’t know someone in a room, you can always talk football.”

Dear England shows the dramatic impact of Southgate’s ideas and Grange’s expertise. “It feels so obvious they should have a psychologist there,” adds Whittaker, who listened to Grange reading the audiobook of Fear Less in preparation (“it should be given to every adult – it’s fucking brilliant”). 

“It’s seen as such a left field idea. You want these elite players to be physically at their peak and expect them to have the right diet, the right training, the right sleep. Yet their brain is an afterthought.”

Watching the England team – including new captain Harry Kane (Will Antenbring), Raheem Sterling (Francis Lovehall) and Marcus Rashford (Edem-Ita Duke) – confront their fears, face down racism and re-find the joy in playing for England is stirring stuff. (Spoiler alert: even when we know the outcome, depictions of penalty shootouts send the heart rate soaring.) It’s also a timely example of the impact of strong and courageous leadership. 

“Gareth Southgate is a quiet revolutionary,” says Fiennes. “He is a great mentor of the kind we need in the crazy world of the manosphere and toxic masculinity. He’s a special man. Few raise their head above the parapet, especially when you think about the colossal damage 1996 would have done to his psyche. To use that pain shows great leadership. 

“We are at a point in history in which leadership is going to the dogs. Think about how Covid was handled. Or Brexit and the leaders who lied. There is a revolving door at Number 10 and no one can get a handle on leadership. Meanwhile, a quiet, unassuming man from Crawley did get a handle on it in the most amazing way.”

“They should build a statue of him,” grins Whittaker. “I feel so passionately about this man I’ve never met because of the way James has written Dear England.” 

Dear England is on BBC One on Sunday and Monday nights and iPlayer

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