Playing the Game: Race Relations, Racism and Nation in Roy Williams’ Sports Plays

Abstract

As we saw in Chapter 2, Roy Williams is widely commended for writing urgent and edgy ‘state-of-the-nation’ plays that foreground social commentary and debates about race, national identity and belonging, and explore how multiracial demographics affect black and white British males’ sense of self and place in urban communities. Several of Williams’ plays use sporting contexts to examine these societal relationships and this chapter considers the social impact of these plays as a genre through an exploration of his portrayals of (black) masculinity, race, racism and nation in three plays depicting players and fans of sport in Britain.¹ Williams confesses to being ‘hopeless’ at sports as a child, stating, ‘to be a footballer then was the only thing black kids had going for them, and all my other black mates were really good at sports’ (cited in Hattenstone, Guardian, 7 June 2010). His sports plays examine how racially coded expectations surround black men’s ability as players of sports and illustrate how understanding sporting support as an index of national identity and belonging is made more complex by the presence of black players and fans. Sport can both unite and divide nations, thus making it an apt arena for Williams’ explorations of complex ideas about Britishness.