WHY I STUCK A FLARE UP MY AR*E FOR ENGLAND
Garrick Theatre
★★★★
“an hour of pure theatre comedy gold”
Just once in a while a piece of writing and a solo performance comes along that leaves you tingling as you leave the theatre. Jodie Comer’s Prima Facie was one. Now, at the opposite end of the scale of experience, comes Alex Hill with his one-man show about football fandom, its heights and its depths.
‘Why I Stuck A Flare up my Ar*e for England’ has been around for three years and, frankly, there is little for a reviewer to say that hasn’t been already said. It premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2023, returned in 2024 and 2025, and for the last year has been touring in the UK and Australia. It’s been playing to sell-out audiences (last night was no exception) and has consistently garnered four and five stars.
So why I hadn’t heard of it (nor had my companion) is a bit of a mystery but here is where the brilliance of writer/performer/producer Alex Hill starts. Football dramas (the Ted Lasso TV series excepting) are not my usual fare. I barely noticed the European championship game when the #bumflare incident went viral and inspired this exposition. The current excitement around FIFA World Cup 2026 leaves me cold. Yet this could scarcely be a better time to see this show. It is both dazzling and devastating in its fantasy exploration of the inner life of fictional football fanatic Billy Kinley. And an eye opener into the poignancy of a simple childhood love of the game gone wrong.
Billy is a character based on a real-life England fan who put a lit flare in his buttocks before the 2021 Euros final. Hill – a 2022 graduate of Arts Educational Schools – has transformed this laughable event into just over an hour of pure theatre comedy gold. His energy is jaw dropping. Downing in quick succession two pints of, apparently, beer; throwing out his arms shouting ‘It’s match time’; bounding about the simple stage engaged in virtual fighting; the pace leaves you gasping. And then, as his downward spiral into drink, drugs, tribal battles, racism and fatal relationships spins him into excess, you suddenly see his world explode and Hill delivers an extraordinary transition towards a tear-jerking, sombre finale.
There is genius in here too, with the matching of football culture against classic arts ‘culture’. In a hilarious episode, Billy finds himself manoeuvred into taking his girlfriend to what he calls a ‘Martini’ performance of Les Misérables, just when he should be at his beloved Saturday afternoon match. Throughout this show, Hill is laughing at himself, at us and, of course, at football obsession.
The monologue is not completely without flaws: some strange sound design early on and a couple of narrative connections lost. Set against this was a truly engaged audience, shouting encouragement as he necked those pints, singing along to the match anthems, and roaring with laughter as he threw himself around afterwards. Clearly most of them, unlike me, knew what they were in for. And everyone was on their feet at the end, quietening only as Hill – crying himself – read out this thanks and credits, mostly to show director Sean Turner who took a bet on him back in 2023.
‘Why I Stuck a Flare…..’ is leaving now for New York. Not surprising, in 2026; yet I can’t help wondering what American audiences, who grew up with films like Jerry Maguire and Field of Dreams, will make of this extraordinary addition to football arts.
WHY I STUCK A FLARE UP MY AR*E FOR ENGLAND
Garrick Theatre
Reviewed on 21st June 2026
by REVIEWER
Photography by Rah Petherbridge
