Offside features Jessica Butcher as a female footballer through the centuries

The new play is called Offside and written by Sabrina Mahfouz and Hollie McNish, produced by Futures Theatre.

It depicts four women from across the centuries who live, breathe, and play football.

“Whilst each of them face very different obstacles in pursuing their dream profession, the possibility that the beautiful game will change their futures – and the world – is tantalisingly close,” Jessica tells me.

Jessica plays Keeley, a 21 year old footballer, who is trialling for England.

“Sabrina and Hollie have written a beautiful, lyrical play that explores the excitement and complexity of the women’s game.

“Yes, it’s about football, but it’s about so much more than that - it’s about what it means to be a young women in the world today.

“It’s about standing up to body shaming and entrenched misogyny.

“To allow space for female characters in their full and honest and brilliant form; we contain multitudes. It’s about sisterhood, determination and fight.

“It’s for every woman who has ever been told to stay in their place, who has been told they are not good enough, who has been told to be quiet.

So tell us about the character herself: “Keeley is on the brink of doing something spectacular but is being held back by many things. She is full of fear.

“Her footballing heroine is Lily Parr who founded one of the first women’s teams in England. Lily’s team, The Dick Kerr Ladies, played to huge crowds until the FA banned women from playing in 1921 as they thought the game ‘unsuitable for females’.

“Tanya Loretta Dee plays Mickey, another young woman trialling for the England team, her heroine is Carrie Bousted who was reported to be the first black female footballer. She played in Scotland in the 1880s. “

Since Offside opened in London last week it has been discovered that Carrie was in fact called Emma Clarke and had been misnamed on a team photograph.

Did that change anything for the cast?

“It has given us even more energy and fire to go out there and shout about these incredible women who have been sidelined and silenced by history,” Jessica tells me.

Daphne Kouma then plays a myriad of characters in the play; journalists, the England coach, managers and many more to illustrate the difficulties women face in the sporting world.

So what’s it like returning to Oxford: “It feels very special to be performing at the North Wall.

“For me, Oxford was the beginning of my love for theatre. “

The daughter of the charismatic Mark Butcher, aka Baz, who runs the White Hart in Wytham, Oxford is where the 29 year-old grew up and first trod the boards, even though she now lives in London.

“I went to Greycotes and then Oxford High School and spent many years performing in school plays. It was a girls school, so I always played the male roles.

“My first and favourite role was Hamish Bigmore in Humphrey Carpenter’s Mr Majeika.

“Hamish was profoundly unpleasant and eventually got his comeuppance by being turned into frog; I got to ribbit down the centre aisle of the school hall dressed in a frog onesie. It was great.

“At OHS, I progressed from frogs, and got to try a number of Shakespearean male characters. I didn’t play a woman until I was eighteen.

“Being taken to see Shared Experience’s production of Bronte was my first glimpse at feminist theatre and it changed everything. I sat in those red Oxford Playhouse seats and thought ‘I want to do that’.

Looking back on it now, playing those male characters helped me to begin to understand performative gender and the complexity of characterisation that is so often lacking in female roles.

“Thank goodness things are finally changing for the better and we are getting more female led stories on stage and screen.

“I feel very lucky to be part of this movement and to have found Futures Theatre, led by Caroline Bryant, a company whose aim is to create work that promotes gender equality. So come and join us at The North Wall.

“We’d love to see you. “