Playing Away

As an avid cricket fan, I am constantly puzzled and dismayed by the negative depiction of the sport on the big screen. Sadly, "Playing Away" is no exception.

A group of West Indian cricketers from inner city London are invited to participate in a charity match against a village team from rural Suffolk.

So far so good. But rather than portraying cricket as a potent social glue, the director instead chooses to use the game as a source of anger and bigotry. Throwing in some predictable racial stereotypes for good measure.

Indeed, the only time that black and white appear to reach an "understanding" is illustrated in a particularly tacky scene when one of the visiting players has sex with a local girl in the village churchyard.

"Playing Away" was released at a time in the eighties, when British movie makers felt compelled to "educate" their audiences about perceived social injustices rather than just try and actually entertain them.

Little wonder then, that UK cinema goers preferred watching Bruce Willis blowing up a fleet of jumbo jets in a vest as opposed to this moralistic claptrap.

I for one cannot blame them.

This is a film about the late 70s made in the late 80s. It is therefore very much of its time and reflects the political mores and attitudes of that period.

You can form your own judgement as to how far we have progressed since then, but the film is a frank and honest endeavour to raise and poke (some) fun at some of the discrimination and racism of the time. It also comes with a gentle humour all of its own, and has a strong black Brixton cast (including Norman Beaton and suzette llewellyn) who overshadow the slightly bland white midsummer village cast (including Nicholas Farrell).

Its an interesting idea, but either the screenplay was poor or the editing cut lacked a clear sense of continuous story. There were probably just too many subplots and minor characters that had a backstory but werent given sufficient screen time to be explained, developed or cared about.

This is not really a cricket or sports film, but nonetheless the game is reflected reasonably accurately in the later game action scenes, certainly more realistically than some other films we could mention.

Overall i quite enjoyed it despite a slightly downbeat and unresolved ending.

Also interesting for an early appearance by Neil Morrissey as a racist lout, and Ross Kenp.

I watched this film on TV at the time and it always left an impression on me.

Being of West Indian heritage, I could very much identify with the language, culture and racism of the period.

And the 1-star review is hopelessly misplaced in light of a recent report commissioned by the ECB which shows the game is, sadly, riddled with racism, sexism and classism from top to bottom.

Rather than being a "potent social glue", the film, perhaps rather presciently, shines a light on the reality of the game for those who are not White, male and upper-class.

Regardless, the film rather betrays its modestly-budgeted origins with some choppy editing and unresolved narrative threads, but is still rather enjoyable when it is taken in its context - a snapshot of 80's Britain for life as an ethnic minority.

Remarkably, it's available to buy on DVD and I would very much recommend it - even the cricket scenes are reasonably convincing!