Review: The Pitch

📍 Baby Grand at Pleasance Courtyard

🗓️ 22nd August 2026

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Written by Philip Catherwood, The Pitch follows three young adults navigating life in East Belfast as a United Ireland referendum looms. Robbie has grown up playing football on the local pitch, but with costs rising and the possibility of it becoming a Gaelic football ground instead, times are changing in the local area and no one quite knows how to feel about it. When he runs into local GAA player Deren, the pair clash over their different interests, which only escalates when Robbie’s sister Melissa decides she wants to switch her interest to Gaelic football instead.

With a runtime of 80 minutes, this play completely had my attention for the entire duration. The pacing of the play is fantastic — it’s quite fast-paced, but at no point does it ever feel hard to follow. With the cast of three kicking and hand-passing footballs around the stage, there’s so much action within the piece, yet it’s all so controlled. It’s such a well-written piece, with plenty of humour, drama and tension balanced well throughout the script.

The set itself is rather simple, but incredibly effective. They’ve brought in astroturf to lay on the ground, and goalposts are drawn on the wall behind, changing as the play progresses from football posts to Gaelic football posts. It’s a very simple but effective way to represent the changing environment in which they are living.

The lighting was also really effective in the storytelling, from helping to emphasise the more dramatic arguments to creating the effect of being on the pitch at night. It added another layer to the production and worked really well alongside the simple set.

The cast of three do a great job in telling this story, with James Grimm as Robbie, Jake Douglas as Deren and Dión Di Maio as Melissa. They capture their characters really well — there are three very different personalities here, but they each bounce off each other so impressively. It all feels very natural, and there were moments where I forgot I was in the Baby Grand at Pleasance Courtyard and not actually watching these scenes play out on a football pitch. Their energy, sense of humour and interactions really came through and elevated this play even further. It’s very clear that each of their characters has a strong pull towards their respective favourite sports and what that means for them in the greater scheme of things.

I didn’t quite expect there to be so much humour within this play, but it fits perfectly into the story and personalities of the characters. Some really hard-hitting conversations about what a United Ireland would look like and how it would affect their lives are balanced out with hilarious discussions about which version of Tayto crisps are better, as well as the usual conversations about crushes, love and relationships. And if you're not familiar, you can also learn a little about how to play Gaelic football along the way!

I found the themes around identity and the possibility of a United Ireland particularly interesting, and it was really interesting to see these conversations explored through the eyes of these characters. 

The Pitch is an incredibly engaging, thoughtful play with plenty of tension, humour and a beautiful story about identity, growing up and friendships. It’s a really enjoyable piece of theatre that had my attention from beginning to end and I would really like to see the full version of this play.

The Pitch continues its run at Baby Grand at Pleasance Courtyard until 31 August at 14:00.