For a director known for bold staging, Rupert Goold is persuasive when he gives an actor room to think. We recommend the warmth and restraint of Dear England, with reservations about asking one team to explain a country.
Fi1m perspective
Joseph Fiennes’s Gareth Southgate seems to think before he speaks, and that is enough to hold our attention. In Dear England (2026), his restraint gives James Graham’s football drama a persuasive centre after the pleasure of recognising familiar figures has passed. We warmed to Southgate because Fiennes makes his restraint feel like an effort worth making. We recommend the series, and its attention to people gives us a useful starting point for Goold’s screen work.
Goold’s theatre reputation rests partly on much more conspicuous choices, including a Soviet Macbeth and a Las Vegas Merchant of Venice. His productions of Macbeth (2007), with Patrick Stewart, and Lucy Prebble’s Enron (2009) sit within a career that combines revivals with new writing. Television brought The Hollow Crown: Richard II (2012), before his feature debut, True Story (2015). The Judy Garland biographical film Judy followed in 2019.
Graham provides the clearest link between the theatre career and the series. Goold directed the writer’s Ink (2017) and the stage version of Dear England (2023), but television needs more than an established play and recognisable characters. The useful achievement here is making the business of leadership interesting once the introductions are over, with Fiennes providing a reason to care about the man doing it. Paul Whittington shares the directing, with cinematography by Ole Bratt Birkeland and music by Kormac, so the credit should not go to Goold alone.
There are limits to our enthusiasm. Some critics have questioned whether Goold’s visual boldness can come at the expense of substance; our reservation about Dear England is more specific. Asking one football team to explain a country burdens a drama whose thoughtful leadership is already worth watching. We would sooner spend time with this Southgate than demand that he stand for everyone, and the series is worth watching on those terms. Fi1m
Biography
Rupert Goold (born 18 February 1972) is an English theatre director. He is artistic director of the Almeida Theatre and was previously artistic director of Headlong Theatre Company (2005–2013). Since 2010 he has been an associate director at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and he is due to become artistic director of the Old Vic in 2026.
Goold directed the stage premiere of James Graham’s Dear England at the National Theatre in 2023 (with a return in 2025) and its forthcoming four-part television adaptation for BBC One in 2026. His other screen credits include the films True Story (2015) and Judy (2019), and television productions The Hollow Crown: Richard II (2012) and King Charles III (2017). He received Olivier Awards for Best Director for Macbeth (2008) and Enron (2010), and was appointed CBE in 2017 for services to drama.
