An improbable story to surely rival the one about Bob Dylan turning up on the doorstep of someone called Dave in Crouch End, mistaking it for the home of musician Dave Stewart, and, one that, what's more, turns out to be provably true, forms the basis for a play that opened at the Kings Head theatre in north London last night.
A cobbler from Liverpool (and it does sound like the beginning of a joke) called Mark Radley found his way past security into the AC Milan directors' box to watch his team, as he thought, continue to lose miserably to the Italians. In consolation, he began tucking into the free salmon and champagne, before sitting down to watch the end of the 2005 Champions League final. The tanned, middle-aged man in the next seat was – though Radley didn't realise it – none other than the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. As the fortunes of the two teams on the pitch swung around, the mood between the two men understandably changed as well.
Radley was interviewed earlier this year on the Today programme, but I think I first heard the story recounted on one of those Radio 4 real-life experience shows – perhaps the successor to John Peel's Home Truths, since the DJ had died the year before the match. Did anyone else hear it?
In Beating Berlusconi, the playwright John Graham Davies has taken the story as a jumping-off point for a wider exploration of popular politics of the 80s, 90s and the new millennium. Actor Paul Duckworth plays all the roles. It runs at the Islington fringe venue until 4 July and will doubtless capitalise on all the football fever kicking off tomorrow with the World Cup.
