Dear England review – Joseph Fiennes’s Gareth Southgate is a total caricature on TV

This television transfer of the hit play has a great cast and impressive footballing scenes. But the manager feels like a cross between Harold Steptoe and Captain Darling from Blackadder Goes Forth

At the European Championship in 1996, elegant defender Gareth Southgate volunteered to take a kick in the semi-final penalty shootout against Germany, a task many of his teammates shied away from. He missed. England lost.

Dear England, James Graham’s adaptation of his own hit play, picks up the narrative 20 years later. With England further away than ever from international tournament glory after a string of humiliating failures, Southgate (Joseph Fiennes) steps forward again and is surprisingly hired as manager, largely due to a shortage of viable candidates.