Red Ladder Theatre Company

Following its premiere as part of West Yorkshire Playhouse’s ‘A Play, a Pie and a Pint’ last year, Anthony Clavane’s play about legendary rugby league commentator Eddie Waring, Playing The Joker, is to tour rugby clubs in Yorkshire and the North West.

Written by award-winning author and Sunday Mirror sports journalist Anthony Clavane, the show has now been remounted by Red Ladder’s Rod Dixon and is an emotive look into rugby league’s revered and despised spokesman Eddie Waring.

Set in December 1977, nine years since the infamous ‘Watersplash Final’ and the once “Good Old Uncle Eddie” has withdrawn into the protective walls of the Queens Hotel, as a petition grows to have him thrown off the BBC. Idealistic rugby league fan Eddie Marlowe, grieving the recent loss of his father, has been eagerly waiting to be alone with his idol, but as the wait lengthens his patience grows thin. Will he get that chance?

The show examines rugby league through the eyes of its voice (Eddie Waring) and its fans (Eddie Marlowe). Through song, jokes and gripping drama, Eddie Marlowe voices the betrayal and doubt many fans felt towards Waring’s comedy Yorkshireman persona, strengthening the South’s view as a barbaric sport, and creating a rousing critical debate of this “beautiful game”.