It shouldn’t feel like a contentious image: a large cross of St George – England’s national flag – being unfurled and laid out on a raked stage. But at that time, in that place, and in this way, you could feel one of those unique, intake-of-breath moments that happen sometimes in the theatre.

The place in question was the Nottingham Theatre Royal in the East Midlands, one of my local theatres when I was growing up. The play – forgive the self-aggrandisement – was my own, Dear England, about Gareth Southgate’s tenure as England men’s football manager: the first production in the country to receive funding through Arts Council England’s incentivising touring scheme. And the time was the opening night of the play’s nationwide tour in September 2025.

The England flag – seen by some as a legitimate expression of national pride and by others as an intimidating rebuke to perceived liberal immigration policies – had long been fought over, but its controversy intensified after a guerrilla campaign to hang St George’s Crosses on lamp-posts was waged across England’s towns and cities last summer.

The flag featured heavily throughout Dear England in its initial run at the National Theatre, and in the West End in 2023 and 2024. But in the course of a year it had become a toxic hot potato, prompting discussions about how to handle the passionate reactions the scene and the symbol might provoke when the actor playing Gareth simply asks: “What is this?”

This is what I love about theatre. Its superpowers have always been nuance and empathy, even when the world around it is reductive, polarising and unkind. Theatres are story factories that offer, within our communities and nationwide, a lens through which we can see ourselves and our lives, and feel our lives seen and heard.

Thomas Tuchel leads England at World Cup 2026, but when Gareth Southgate took on the role a decade earlier, just months after the divisive Brexit referendum which had done – and would continue to do – so much to challenge social cohesion, he was........

© The Guardian