Stand or Fall review: A magnificent retelling of a familiar story

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The show runs at Brighton's Theatre Royal until Saturday, when there is also a matinee performance.

2026-09-24T11:00+01:00

Mark Brailsford and some of the cast ahead of Stand or Fall, which is now on at Brighton's Theatre Royal. 📷James Boardman

Before the curtain went up on Stand Or Fall at the Theatre Royal on Wednesday, a well-known Albion fan of long standing wondered aloud whether Mark Brailsford’s new play would be able to bring anything new to a story that so many of us already know so well.

Well, it did, and succeeded magnificently in doing so.

Celebrating the club’s 125th anniversary, it surveys the history of the club across the entire sweep of those 125 years, and even looks into the future as Fabian Hurzeler’s team … no, no spoilers.

The show begins, like the Albion, in the early days of the 20th century and roots the club’s story in the words of Sussex By The Sea, as we are reminded that the Sussex Regiment’s marching song was probably the last music that some of those soldiers who fell in the First World War would hear.

The story follows five generations of the Smith family of Brighton through the ups and downs of supporting the Albion, and of their own family dramas.

And Paul Moriarty, who plays granddad Albert, knows all about family dramas from his spell in Eastenders.

The Smiths endure the sale of the Goldstone Ground, the exile in Gillingham and the cramped emergency quarters at Withdean, as well as suffering their own hardships and the sort of loss that puts even a 4-0 home defeat by Crewe Alexandra into perspective.

Mark Brailsford played several walk-on roles in Stand or Fall including former chairman Bill Archer. 📷James Boardman

Those of us whose Albion memories go back further than the discovery of football by Sky Sports in 1992 were delighted by references to players we watched in the 1960s and 70s, and the arrival of Brian Clough at the Goldstone in 1973.

And although we had been promised a few in-jokes, the script was stuffed with references that long-time Albion fans will have loved and appreciated – and that will have perhaps gone over the heads of the casual attendee. The u-bend at Withdean anyone? Only me, then.

Andrew Crouch carries the show splendidly as central character Danny Smith, with top support from James Petherick as his dad Bob, Rebecca Blanchard as his girlfriend Babs and Sarah Man as his mum Sally, a northerner from Burgess Hill!

Writer/director Brailsford, well known to local theatre-going audiences for his magnificent Treason Show and his work with the Brighton Shakespeare Company, confines himself to various walk-on parts, but his eye-patched Bill Archer is a top turn, almost matched by Mann’s truly surreal Sarina Wiegman.

The first night wasn’t perfect, with some of the transitions missing the smoothness of those of the present first team, and some of the emotion spilling over into the sentimental. But if we can’t be sentimental celebrating 125 years of the Albion, when can we?