Review | ‘Michael Essien I Want To Play As You’ at Contact, Manchester

Michael Essien is also known as ‘The Bison’, a nom de guerre earned for his aggressive and determined style of football. A star of the Ghanaian national team, he was signed by Chelsea for £24.4 million. That deal made him, at the time, the most expensive African football player in the world. The acclaim, the money and the associated lifestyle also made him an object of devotion for six young men, who all also played football. Ahilan Ratnamohan discovered them in Belgium. This is their story, shaped by him into a show, but told by them.

The stage is stripped of curtains and a harsh orange floodlight turns it into something like a five-a-side pitch, though in this case there are six men who fill the stage and show us their moves.  The content of the show is a fusion of football practice exercises and story-telling, sometimes done individually, sometimes as an ensemble. Their ball skills are impressive. The movements don’t always synchronise tightly, but this isn’t a corp de ballet. The men demonstrate their individual panache whilst also being able to take on formations, act as one, work in pairs or separate into two teams. There is a real pleasure is seeing such athletic displays, but the opportunity to make the movement into something more metaphorical, or symbolic at least, is not taken. It is never anything more than what it is and is not used expressively to show any of the emotions the men go through or any of the relationships that they are in with each other.

The story-telling mostly just stumbles into the show, like a bad tackle. The abruptness of it can be effective at times, but the piece would benefit from more variation and thought being given to the transitions from movement to speech. The performers are not actors, and it shows. But what they lack in stage skills, they make up for in a simple authenticity which is just as capable of conjuring empathy and understanding.

There are moments of strong comedy also, as the performers and audience recognise some of the cruel ironies of the aspiring footballer’s position. Men from an underclass who worship footballers and develop themselves as candidates for trials in order to escape a disadvantaged life and fail to do so, is a familiar story. The avariciousness of agents is nothing new. But, for these men, the disappointments of their failures is much sharper. They and their families have made enormous sacrifices to buy them an opportunity that may not even exist. The phrase ‘football slave trade’, though a highly emotive term, seems like a fair description of the disreputable chain of exploitation that can leave young men dumped in Europe without money or papers, and with no easy way forward or back.

Michael Essien I Want To Play As You is a candid and clear exploration of the relationship between European football and aspiring African players. It has its limitations in terms of performance, but it is a sincere, often funny, urgent and relevant piece.

Rating: 3/5

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Words: Stephen M Hornby