BAC has been rightly renowned for its Christmas shows in recent years, but that winning streak comes to an end with this re-creation of the England football team's glory hour on a stage that is far smaller than a football pitch.
The show is staged with characteristic dash and invention: it has some funny moments, and the talented, energetic cast are heroes. But the show is far too long, going well into extra-time, and after a while you start to feel that when you've seen one game, you've seen them all. More importantly, whereas previous shows at this address have had a wide family appeal, this one is limited to small boys - small boys aged about 40, to whom the names Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters and Alan Ball mean something.
The suggestion that to many football is like a religion is made from the start, as the audience arrive to find themselves in a church that doubles as a stadium. Some of the early scenes give a neatly observed picture of the Britain of the era: for instance, when the future England manager Alf Ramsey triumphs over football's lower divisions and snobbery with a little help from elocution lessons.
But the show stutters to a halt with its explanation of playing systems - I now know more about the advantages of the four, two, four formation over the pyramid formation than I ever thought possible - and one game quickly merges into another. It is perhaps interesting that the best moment is the selection of the team the night before the final, a quiet scene that has an integral dramatic tension lacking in the manufactured rah-rah of the games themselves.
Football-mad families with children in tow who know the history of the game will enjoy it, but the show is not mythic enough, and doesn't transcend its subject matter for those of us who don't know a free kick from a penalty.
· Until January 15. Box office: 020-7223 2223.
