Joseph Fiennes cast as Gareth Southgate in National Theatre play

A play chronicling “the gentle revolution” led by England men’s football manager, Gareth Southgate, is to be staged at the National Theatre.

James Graham, the writer of the acclaimed television series Sherwood, has written Dear England, about the shift in the national team’s culture under Southgate.

The Hollywood actor Joseph Fiennes is to play the player turned manager in the production this summer.

Graham said Dear England, which takes its name from an open letter written by Southgate to England fans in 2021, is inspired by Southgate’s footballing journey since his infamous penalty miss for England in 1996.

“I think what has happened to the men’s England football team over the past six years has been quietly extraordinary,” Graham told the BBC. “It’s been humming along in the background, but we’re only starting to really understand now Gareth’s gentle revolution.”

Southgate took on the role when the England team was at its “absolute lowest ebb” in 2016 amid an “existential crisis about why we’d lost our way” and against the backdrop of the Brexit vote, Graham said.

Dear England will be directed by Rupert Goold, and the National Theatre’s artistic director, Rufus Norris, described it as “a captivating examination into the complex psychology of the much-loved beautiful game”.

The show will come six months after England were knocked out of the World Cup by France in the quarter-finals, with striker Harry Kane missing a late penalty. Southgate has said he will stay as England boss until after Euro 2024.

“[It’s] great to be writing a story that hasn’t finished,” Graham said. “My experience of watching England go out of this last World Cup, it was a multitude of conflicting feelings when I was sat there in the pub.

“Because