The odds are stacked against England progressing to the World Cup final in Brazil, but England are winning the trophy every night on the Bristol Old Vic stage in this affectionately jokey re-creation of the 1966 final at Wembley.
You certainly don't have to be a football fan to enjoy it. It's pretty clear that even the cast have a shaky grasp of the offside rule, and the goals are mostly scored with a ball on a stick. Silliness rules, with a dash of patriotic fervour thrown in, and an interactive element means that the audience are well up for it.
Mind you, Tom Morris and Carl Heap's script – first staged in 2004 at London's Battersea Arts Centre, where the non-traditional space created a more fluid dynamic – is pretty thin. There's not a lot of tension in the linear plot, as manager Alf Ramsey, scorched by the memory of defeat to the US in Brazil in 1950, vows to bring the cup home to England. Most interesting, perhaps, is the innocence of people in an era long before the Premier League and celebrity footballers. The night before the final, the team settle down to watch Ramsey's favourite movie: Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines.
It's a show with plenty of family appeal, and if it takes a little while to find its rhythm, and doesn't always make football as exciting on the stage as it can be on the pitch, there are still some undeniably lovely moments. I enjoyed the match against Uruguay in which differing football styles are represented by the cha-cha-cha and the military two-step. The personable cast work hard to breathe life into an unlikely band of footballing heroes. It may not be the BOV at the top of its game, but this canny piece of programming is definitely no own goal.
• Until 12 July. Box office: 0117 987 7877. Venue: Bristol Old Vic.
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