The Invincibles
By Amanda Whittington
"I am not a man when I play… I’m a spark, a flame, a fire.”
Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch, September 2023
New Wolsey Theatre (Ipswich), October 2023
Known as the Dagenham Invincibles, Sterling Ladies are the greatest women’s football team of World War One. Over two whirlwind seasons they will never lose a game. The New York Herald declares them “The Unbeaten Women Champions of the Country.” Yet in 1919, the factory girls hang up their boots and triumphs fade into obscurity…
In 2023 their war-cry is heard in the roar of the Lionesses. The world has changed, yet the Women’s World Cup evokes The Invincibles’ joyous spirit. For Hornchurch teenager Maya, it’s the event of the summer. Cheering England from the family sofa, she also conjures up long-lost footballing secrets…
This world premiere play from Amanda Whittington, one of the most widely performed playwrights in the UK, will be written as the World Cup plays out. Like the best football games, we won’t know the result until the final whistle…
Promising thrills and spills, The Invincibles will celebrate both the Lionesses’ epic summer adventure and the pioneering women who played their heart out a century – yet just a heartbeat – before.
Cast: Eleanor Kane, Gemma Barnett, Georgia Bruce, Nikita Johal, Rebecca Hayes, Simon Darwen, Steve Simmonds, Yanexi Enriquez, Emma Feeney
Playwright: Amanda Whittington
Director: James Grieve
Assistant director: Rebecca Goh
Musical director: Andrew Linham
Movement director: Lucie Pankhurst
Set / costume designer: Laura Ann Price
Lighting designer: Martha Godfrey
Sound designer: Holly Khan
Costume supervisor: Nicola Thomas
Casting director: Jenkins & McShane
Production manager: Christine Piper
Company stage manager: Lauren Harvey-Dempster
Reviews and Feedback
“An ode to the lovely Hornchurch and the football legends tied to the area who paved the way for generations to come, The Invincibles is an eye opening and exciting story: a great display of the beautiful game.”
“⭐⭐⭐⭐ The beauty of Whittington’s play, however, is that it allows the human stories to flourish behind the football history lesson. Love blossoms tentatively between players, friendships are forged and death is very much a part of life. Whittington’s play is packed with light and shade… the performances from this exciting ensemble are full of charm and honesty.”
“The cast are perfectly in tune with each other, and riotously funny in their uplifting responses to injustice. In its vivid illumination of forgotten local forebearers, The Invincibles does real justice to the wondrous possibilities of grassroots football – and specifically to these extraordinary women – whose rare invincibility of courage and imagination silently endures.”