Fever Pitch

Despite the ‘million-copies-sold’ blurb, this reviewer found Nick Hornby’s footie-fanatic autobiography a trudge, not because of the subject matter, but for the dearth of dialogue. Thank goodness then for director Paul Hodson’s adaptation – and James Kermack’s passionate delivery – which, whilst remaining a one-man affair, kicked this coming-of-age, social-history-of-soccer epic into life with inventive enactments of everything from the thirty-something Nick’s therapy sessions – “as an Arsenal fan, I feel doomed to a lifetime of dissatisfaction” – to his eerily-lit adolescent nightmares of missing the cup final whilst trapped in a Bangkok rickshaw. What might’ve been a Fourth-Division dribble was saved by Premier-League performance and production. Result!

Komedia, 1 May 2012
[Rating: 4/5]
Colette Bernhardt