James Graham urges England players to miss Dear England before World Cup

james graham does not want England's players to watch Dear England before the World Cup. Speaking at the London launch of the adaptation, he said he would rather they stay focused on the tournament than spend time on his play.

"I wouldn’t want them to watch it, I want them to really focus on what they’re doing," he said. Graham added: "I wouldn’t want to be the one responsible for disrupting our best chance [of winning the World Cup] in a long time."

Graham and Southgate

Graham also said he was glad Gareth Southgate did not come to see the play during the final tournaments. "I’m glad [Southgate] didn’t come and see it during the final tournaments because he is the storyteller and those players are the storytellers, and their story shouldn’t be corrupted by my version of it," he said.

The project carries more weight because Dear England is the adaptation of Graham's hit stage play about the past decade in English soccer. It comes from Left Bank, the producer behind The Crown, and launches next Sunday.

Fresh material in episodes three and four

The adaptation also adds new material in episodes three and four, where Thomas Tuchel enters the story. Graham said the updates make it "feel like you are advancing the story forward as the story was changing," which turns the show into a moving record rather than a fixed retelling.

That is the complication here: the series arrives right as the World Cup approaches in a few weeks, and the people it portrays are still part of the same football conversation. Joseph Fiennes, who plays Southgate, recently met him for the first time and described him as a "remarkable man and an absolute gent."

Southgate and Tuchel

Graham said Southgate should "take equal credit" with Tuchel if England win the World Cup, pointing back to the manager taking over in 2016. He named the play after Southgate's emotional open letter to the public after the pandemic, tying the title to the period the show now revisits.

For viewers, the practical answer is simple: Dear England arrives next Sunday, and its new material means the story is not frozen in the era that made it famous. Graham wants the football to remain the headline, which is probably the right instinct when a show about England lands just before a World Cup.