David Williamson's The Club

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1. Introducing the play
In 1976 some jeremiahs greeted the news that Australia 's most popular playwright was working on a play about football - Australia's most consuming form of popular theatre - with mutterings about the dangers of sacrilege, or of pandering to the public.

2. Characters, social context and structure
Lou Richards, the doyen of Melbourne football scribes, writes in a preface to the published play 1, 'If you can't recognise among the people you know the characters and situations in The Club, then you've either spent the last few years in a Tibetan mona

3. The playwright comments
I used to be a social psychologist and I've always been particularly interested in situations involving power struggles. There are a lot of disputes in Australia in the professional football clubs - territorial battles, usually, between the coaches an

4. The critics' views
Extracts from press reviews of The Club in Australia, The United States and West Germany.

5. Questions for discussion, further reading and endnotes
How wide-ranging are the themes of The Club? You could consider in this connection some of these remarks by reviewers: