Derby Days
Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool
★★★★

WHEN I first moved to Liverpool, one of the first questions I was asked was “Which team do you support?” Without hesitation, I replied “Both of them.” I was immediately rebuked with “You can’t do that. It’s got to be one or the other.”

Derby Days, a brand new comedy written by Ian Salmon, focuses on the conflict caused when a couple who adore each other still feel illogical outrage and aggression because they do not shout for the same footie team.

Electrician, Dave Derby and amateur artist, Debbie Day meet, ironically, on a local derby day, and taking an instant shine to each other, decide to live together. However, it’s not a truly happy partnership because Dave is a die-hard Red and Debbie is an Everton Toffee. It’s as though they are members of aggressively opposing tribes.

But, focusing on comedy, and with a reminder that laughter is considered the best medicine, the play moves on to demonstrate this can be counteracted if the heart is in the right place. Their only child, daughter Chloe, returns from London with her new boyfriend Marc, who declares he knows nothing about football. 

“What am I going to talk about?” he asks anxiously. What Marc dare not share with them is that he is an ardent supporter of a team 30 miles down the road, Manchester United — a truly dark secret!

The obsessions continue. Chloe is forced to sleep in the box room because the spare bedroom is crammed solid with Dave’s collection of trainers — a footfall of football.

Unlike her parents, Chloe wears two colours — a red knitted beanie hat when talking to dad and a blue beanie when talking to mum. Chloe carefully keeps herself on both sides having learned from the age of five to “like your team when I am with you.” When Chloe announces to Dave and Debbie they may soon be grandparents, the true things in life that really matter become clear. It’s all about change, moving forward through acceptance and compassion.

In the last scene the reds and blues pictures and posters on the living room walls are mixed up and seem to be moving alongside each other. Dave takes off his red shirt only to uncover a blue one. Debbie likewise removes her blue shirt and uncovers red — symbolic of mutual understanding and acceptance of each other.

With lots of inferences about the roots of conflict, Ian Salmon’s brand new comedy has an underlying theme which although focused on the soccer-mad side of Liverpool, does hint at other fanatical, dogmatic, bigoted forces and, in this context, Nigel Farage gets a mention.

It’s not simply blues versus reds. In real life, it’s more serious than that, often resulting in local, national or international tensions.

This is both a reflective and hilarious play performed by incredibly talented actors. Let’s stick with, you love your team, I love mine, we love each other’s. Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on. On derby days it should simply be the best team that wins. And this is a winning piece of theatre.

Runs until October 18 2025. Box office: (0151) 709-4321, liverpoolsroyalcourt.com.