Red Stitch embrace small-town comedy in Jumpers for Goalposts Motley crew: Barely athletic but still trying in Jumpers for Goalposts. It's grim up north, as the English saying warns us. But of all of the grey and damp industrial cities from Scunthorpe to Workington, there's a special level of pity heaped upon poor old Hull. It has the UK's highest percentage of population on the dole, until recently one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy, and is dogged by problems ranging from high crime levels to poor education services. Perfect place for a romantic comedy, then. Jumpers for Goalposts is a play that immediately calls to mind the strong cinematic tradition of setting feel-good working class outings in the midst of the North's unforgiving landscape. Think of the minor, very human triumphs of stories in the vein of The Full Monty or Billy Elliot, and then introduce that other perennial genre of small victories, the world's-worst-sporting-team-makes-good, and you've got a good sense of the territory covered here. Barely Athletic are a laughably poor pub football team in a five-a-side gay and lesbian league. Coach Viv tries to motivate her players to at least finish the season second last; Beardy Geoff is more preoccupied with transitioning from busker to gay icon; Danny has a secret that keeps him afraid of romance; "Token Straight" Joe is muddling along in the wake of his wife's death; and newcomer Luke is too shy to actually play. Rory Kelly plays Luke and understands from personal experience that depressing environments such as Hull can give rise to a particular kind of comedy. He grew up in a tiny town in far north Queensland. "The industries are different and the landscapes are very different but fundamentally I think the people are the same," he says. Everyone has told me that Hull is the kind of place where you'll actually steer out of your way to avoid. It's those kind of places, where the actual town you grow up in has no expectations, it's very easy not to have any expectations of yourself. It's very similar to the little towns in Australia. In such communities, sport can form bonds that otherwise would be hard to create. "In north Queensland the farming communities are not terribly emotional people," Kelly says. They work hard and in some cases life is long and there's not necessarily a lot of brightness to it on the surface. Then there's that fantastic thing about sport bringing the community together and almost being an outlet for people to really care about something and one another. Kelly thinks of Jumpers for Goalposts being a little like "a gay/lesbian/trans/bi version of The Mighty Ducks. It's got that whole thing of a rag-tag bunch of people coming together to try and find out who they are and what's the point of connecting. The play's Australian debut will be a production by Red Stitch Actors Theatre. The same company presented another work by the same playwright, Tom Wells, in the form of 2012's The Kitchen Sink, and the season enjoyed rave reviews here, as it had previously in the UK. If there's a recurrent theme in the playwright's work, it is individuals getting over themselves in order to find connections with others. "There's that strange 21st century thing that we all have about individualism and just doing things for yourself so that you can be the best version of you," Kelly says. But the reason to be the best version of yourself is so that you can be a member of this community, and it can be greater than you are on your own. Much of the play's charm - and on paper, at least, it's an immensely likeable and often laugh-out-loud piece - is in how much generosity it extends to people who are a little bit crap at life in a way to which most can probably relate. It's "that wonderful thing about how you don't necessarily have to be amazing," Kelly says. You don't have to be a billionaire or win first prize in a beauty contest. It's about enjoying life. If you get in there and have a go, that's where you get all of the real satisfaction and have some human interaction and get to really forge a decent bond based on who you actually are. Jumpers for Goalposts runs until December 20 at Red Stitch Actors Theatre.