Jumpers for Goalposts

by Tom Wells

A hilarious and heart-warming comedy about football, friendship and finding your way.

Luke wants Danny, but Danny’s got a secret. Joe’s happy in goal but Geoff wants a headline gig. Viv just wants to beat the lesbians to the league title. Game on.

Genres: Plays, LGBT

96 pages, Paperback

First published May 31, 2013

Reviews

[Harry McDonald]

lol just ruin my life why don't you.

This is so, so wonderful - and not in an annoying sentimental way. Just genuinely nice people trying their best and fucking up and coping with it. There's something quite familiar about it and I mean that entirely as a compliment. It also has one of the most romantic speeches in modern theatre in it sooooo yeah I'm off to therapy!

[Doug]

Loved Wells' first play (Me, As A Penguin), was somewhat ambivalent about his 2nd (The Kitchen Sink), but am absolutely crazy over this one... even though I know nothing, and care less, about English football. But this tale of a ragtag gang of misfits (the team is called the Barely Athletic) playing in a gay team league is quirky, funny, relatable - and also touchingly sentimental and ultimately heartfelt. Wish someone local would mount a production. PS: the title is a humorous term used to refer to an informal way of playing football, often in the street and using clothes instead of goalposts, especially when you have happy memories of doing this when you were a child.

[Theo]

i read this play cause i’m doing a monologue of it. it’s really nice and sweet but also like proper short. i want like a longer version of it lol.

[Ilias]

HEY I really enjoyed this book. Love a book with a happy ending. Love a play with a very strict structure. Love a story where everyone's Doing Their Best. Love a story about Friendship. It's good!

[eve]

'He is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in Adidas trackies. When he’s there I just want to shout my life is boring please be in it. Across the library. Just shout. I nearly did today but then I thought it could go either way so I just breathed really hard instead. Probably sounds daft but he smells immense and now there’s little particles of him up my nose. Which is a bit like having sex maybe. I dunno.'

[Richard Price]

I enjoyed this, and there are some particuarly lovely, tender moments. A gorgeous, gorgeous ending. At times I found myself willing for the characters to be developed a bit more but I was satisfied by the time I reached the climax of the play. A lovely story, with a novel setting.

[Mim]

4.5

[SureDetroit]

My favourite play, so simple yet so effective. Love it

[Tatiana]

Saw it in London, had to buy the play to re-read all the local phrases that were lost on me. It's cute, in the best sense of the word, as that friend said, "about love and friendship and gays and everything beautiful". And surprising affecting.

[Katiepillar]

Went to see this at the Bush Theatre and loved it so much I bought the text.