Dear England: Skelmanthorpe’s Jodie Whittaker on Southgate BBC drama as Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup squad announced

The Laurence Olivier Award-winning show tells the uplifting and sometimes heartbreaking story of the England football team and Gareth Southgate’s revolutionary tenure as their football manager.

In a new BBC four-part series of the same name, The Handmaid’s Tale star Joseph Fiennes reprises his role as Southgate and is very pleased that this story has been adapted for television.

“I was very fortunate to be part of the stage production. It’s a wonderful piece and I think to work with James Graham and Rupert Goold [the director], and to be in their company again to translate what is essentially a state-of-our-nation drama beyond the stage and to an even wider audience, was an opportunity I really couldn’t miss,” he says.

Dear England — inspired by the open letter Southgate wrote to England fans in 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic — follows Southgate as he takes over the England football team as manager, when the team had the worst track record in the world for penalty shoot-outs.

Southgate teams up with England men’s team psychologist Pippa Grange, portrayed by Jodie Whittaker, from Skelmanthorpe in West Yorkshire, and together they take on the challenge of undoing their painful pattern of loss.

“I always hoped there might be a screen life to Dear England, which would allow us to get inside the heads of the characters with a more intimate quality compared to the epic theatricality of the stage play,” says playwright and screenwriter Graham, 43, who is responsible for hit shows including Quiz, Sherwood and Brexit: An Uncivil War.

“It’s been incredibly exciting to translate the story and the backstage world of the England men’s football team into television. There’s a huge reach to TV dramas too — this is a national side, it was shown at the National Theatre, and it’s now going to be on our national broadcaster, the BBC, where the whole nation can access it.

“I’m a big believer that stories like this should be for everybody, and while theatre is great for packing people into a space, there are barriers to that, so the opportunity to put Dear England on TV made me feel excited to talk about these themes on a popular level,” he adds.

When Whittaker, 43, was offered her role, the play was in the last week of its run at the National Theatre.

Although she caught actor Gwilym Lee’s portrayal of Southgate in the 2025 rerun, the Broadchurch star didn’t get to see Fiennes’ interpretation of the former Middlesbrough centre-back. But she says sharing a lot of scenes with him in the TV adaptation has made up for it.

“It is like being in a scene with Gareth Southgate! I’m really into football, and I was brought up with it all my life. My dad is a massive Huddersfield Town fan, and my husband is a huge Arsenal fan, as are my kids,” explains Whittaker, who was the first woman to play the title role in Doctor Who.

“People within football are very familiar to me, so even though I knew it was Joseph Fiennes opposite me, there were so many times where I’d glance over and couldn’t believe I wasn’t looking at or talking to Gareth Southgate.

“As an actor, Joseph is phenomenal. As a person, he’s an absolute gentleman and wonderful to be around. He’s a true leader.”

Throughout Southgate’s tenure between 2016 and 2024, he was often criticised for being “too nice”.

“I think you’ve got to look at his background. He was a young player, then he managed teams and became a father and uncle figure to a lot of these boys who are now seniors. So there’s a very, very tight emotional connection to those players,” says Fiennes, 55.

“Gareth knew something was wrong, and it was in his lifetime as a young player that he could see the attitudes about winning and the expectations that had been thrust upon everyone since 1966 and the World Cup win, crippled the freedom of play.

“And Jodie and I will know as actors, there’s fear around us all the time. But how do you play with joy? How do you act with joy? How do you write with joy as a journalist? And I think there’s a sense that you have to tackle fear in order to unbound yourself and become creative.

“You can only really be creative if you’re joyous, and you can only be joyous if you’re heard, protected and understood. And I think Gareth really understood those intrinsic values from a psychological point of view. It’s why he brought Pippa in, and the results were quite startling.”

For Whittaker, it’s “gobsmacking” that the mental wellbeing of a football player isn’t treasured as much as how their bones, joints and physical training sessions are.

“I would be fascinated to know how many clubs implement mental health support, particularly in the youth teams. Is there a place for them to go? Is there someone to talk to? Is there guidance on how you deal with the pressure of external, the internal, all of those things? Because what this story does is show that Gareth saw that, and saw that something was holding them back,” she says.

“And everyone’s version of it is so fascinating. In the opening scene, the physio feels it’s arrogance, and actually, it’s a very simple thing, but a huge hurdle to overcome, which is fear. Bringing in Gareth mainly, but then also bringing in someone like Pippa to address that is fascinating.

“I think it shows the side of football you’re never going to get in 90 minutes. James’ writing is so beautiful to let viewers in.”

Dear England comes to BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Sunday, May 24