Exeter Northcott Theatre welcomed “Exe Men”, a play about the Exeter Chiefs’ journey to making history by becoming European champions, from October 7-18. Based on Rob Kitson’s best-selling book Exe Men, Emmy Award-winning screenwriter Ashley Pharoah and director Martin Berry brought Exeter’s local triumph to life.
All three creatives have strong ties to the South West. Kitson felt that the region, which he described as a place with “warm people, a lot of passion” was often underrepresented on stage. One of the reasons why he wrote the book was because he wanted to celebrate the people in the South West. Having grown up in the South West, Berry echoed Kitson’s sentiment that the South West is “not a part of the world that shouts particularly loudly.” He said “people from the South West generally don’t show off, [they] don’t feel the need to make a fuss.” It is this modesty which makes Exe Men, a play which celebrates local pride, particularly moving.
As plays go, ones about sport are few and far between. Football play “Dear England” won awards for its examination of what happens when sport and the nation become interlinked, but plays rooted in sport are still rare, let alone ones about rugby. That didn’t deter the creative team, however. “I’d seen a couple that worked really well, and as soon as I read Rob’s book I knew this could be done,” Berry explained.
They are also aware of the challenges that being one of the first people to put rugby on stage brings with it. “70 per cent of people are going to look at the publicity and think how on earth are they going to do rugby on stage, but between lighting, sound, and lots of bodies and actors, sometimes with a real ball and sometimes with an imaginary ball, there’s actually a lot you can do,” Berry continued.
“To be honest, we haven’t lent into the technicalities of rugby, as that might been a bit too much for a non-rugby audience,” Pharoah added. The play doesn’t attempt to get stuck into the weeds of the patient and suffocating rugby tactics that characterised the Chiefs’ era of success. Instead, the play is littered with easter eggs, or, as Berry described, “secret little nuggets of joy” for the rugby enthusiasts in the audience and the “people like Rob Kitson to go, ‘ahhh, clever’” he added with a smirk.
Pharoah described it as a “play about sport, but it’s not really about sport, it’s about people, and dreams.” Kitson himself wanted the book to be “more about the people than necessarily the nitty-gritty.”
In today’s world, theatre and tight budgets go hand in hand. Berry admitted that in terms of government, “it is particularly tight at the moment”. Despite being funded by Exeter City Council, the University of Exeter and Arts Council England annually, the majority of income still comes from ticket sales. Right now, Berry is not in a position to program plays which may be artistically amazing but would struggle to sell tickets. The solution is to make compromises. Of course, there are inevitable moments when the crew thought that if the theatre had a bigger budget, “it would be nice to do [a scene] in a different way.”
All three agree that the issue of tight budgets is reflected across the creative industries, especially in Film & TV. However, Pharaoh added an optimistic spin to the obstacle. He explained that this isn’t always a bad thing as a creative person. Tight budgets “enable you to test yourself, to use the power of imagination to make things better.” Indeed, Exe Men was a play which had minimal stage props, relying on the crew’s talent and imagination to make the portrayal a success.
People being at the centre of the story is of the upmost importance to the team behind the production, especially in the context of rugby itself in what Pharoah called a “strange time.” With three top-flight English clubs having gone bust since 2022, and the newly rebranded “Prem” edging closer to a closed franchise-system wherein a rise through the ranks like the one Exe Men focuses on would be impossible, the story has taken on a new relevance.
Will anyone ever do an ‘Exeter’ again? Possibly not but that’s what makes this story so special.
“The distance they had to travel, from losing to Sidmouth and Tiverton to conquering Europe is a heck of a story,” Kitson reflected. “It might be that it’s a story of its time. Will anyone ever do an ‘Exeter’ again? Possibly not but that’s what makes this story so special.”
In the face of what he labelled a “different era” of rugby, he hopes the play shows “when you get the right group of people together, on fertile ground, with everybody pulling in the right direction, amazing things can happen.”
Rugby’s direction of travel may be removing the possibility of an ‘Exeter’ happening again, but optimism hasn’t fully dissipated. As Pharoah put it, “I guess that’s the beauty of sport, you never ever know.”
Check out Exeposé’s review of Exe Men on our next print issue.
