"The country that gave the world football has delivered a painful pattern of loss. Why can't the England team win at their own game?" It's a question every England fan has screamed at a screen. Now it's the premise of a BBC miniseries.
Dear England — a dramatised account of Gareth Southgate's tenure as England manager — premieres on BINGE on May 28, arriving just weeks before the FIFA World Cup kicks off. The timing is almost too on the nose.
Fiennes as Southgate — from stage to screen
Joseph Fiennes, BAFTA and Emmy-nominated, reprises the lead role he first played in James Graham's West End stage production, which won Best New Play at the 2024 Olivier Awards. Transposing a celebrated piece of theatre to television is always a gamble. Fiennes seems aware of it.
"It's difficult to transpose the theatre to the television," he told the Andover Advertiser, "but I think the writers, the directors, the producers, have done a phenomenal job."
The four-part series covers Southgate's full reign from 2016 to 2024 — the worst penalty record in world football when he took over, through to the 2018 World Cup semi-final, the Euro 2020 final loss, and the Euro 2024 final loss. Two finals. Two defeats. A record that reads better than it feels.
Jodie Whittaker plays psychologist Pippa Grange, the appointment that defined Southgate's unconventional approach — building belief in a dressing room that had been running on anxiety for decades. Whether that worked is still a matter of opinion. The results suggest it half-worked.
What it actually meant for England football
Southgate is widely regarded as England's most successful manager since Alf Ramsey, whose side won the World Cup in 1966. That's both a genuine compliment and a damning indictment of the six decades in between. He left after the Euro 2024 defeat, having rebuilt the culture if not quite collected the silverware.
With the World Cup approaching, the series lands at a moment when interest in England's footballing identity is as sharp as it gets. The betting market on England to win the tournament will be busy regardless — but Dear England is a useful reminder of exactly how far they've come, and how often that's still not been far enough.
"It has been a gift," Fiennes said of playing Southgate on both stage and screen. For England fans still processing two lost finals, whether to call Southgate's era a gift or a near-miss probably depends on how much optimism they have left.
