The BA Acting & Community Engagement course at East 15 Drama School have hit the headlines this week with their original devised piece ‘Death of a Chairman’.

Word is going around the city of Southend about this new play as it focuses on a big issue which has been at the heart of the community for years – the chairman of Southend United Football Club.

This piece of verbatim theatre follows the story of court battles, winding up orders, fan protests and transfer embargos which have sent the club into turmoil and caused the fanbase to turn on their villainous chairman. It’s wholly based on words directly from the mouths of Southend supporters, journalists, MPs and even the local pub landlady.

Director Sarah Fielding’s triumphant work of piecing together the interviews of 21 different people from the community is highly commendable. Turning over 13 hours of interview recordings into an 80 minute piece of captivating theatre, she has created a show which flies along and truly grips its audience.

It’s very much an ensemble production and the company, who have also helped to devise the piece, bring a sense of community to proceedings, constantly entering and exiting into Carlos Moral Reis’ busy pub setting, which transitions into a courtroom and other locations from time to time.

There are standout performances from Darcy Hall, Jennifer Jones and Katherine Castellucci while Jonny Mills’ perfect portrayal of The Journalist is both captivating and poignant. The glorious chants and songs, which the cast recreated from match days, beautifully echo around the auditorium like a war cry from the stands.

The use of video technology, streamed live from an iPhone on stage, is a nice addition and depicting the Chairman in a large rat costume was a clever touch, even if the rat suit looked rather cheap and disappointing. It was also a shame that the production was staged on a Saturday when Southend United were actually playing, taking a lot of the potential interested audience away from booking.

Overall, it’s a wonderful piece of community theatre and tells its story perfectly. It’s not just a play about football but a deeper undertone of community, family and coming together. Up the Shrimpers!

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