Review by Simon Jenner, May 22 2026
★ ★ ★ (★)
“Gentlemen. What you’re looking at isn’t just a shoe company.” December 1947. The M&S-tranced audience is a mirror and an ambitious narcissist is sure his takeover will work. Pity it concerns his own brother. Based on a real history with brand-names we’ll clock immediately, this work is about a time running out on a running-shoe name. You might not have heard of the Brothers Dassler. But you’ll know Adidas, and Puma. Jamie Radford’s debut play The Dasslers tightly directed by Sapphire Shoferpoor runs at the Bridewell Theatre London till May 23.
Rudolf Dassler (Finn Samuels) and Friedl Dassler (Siân Godsmark), Photo Credit: Jamie Radford
The Dasslers plunges into a four-sided conflict with two supporting cast-members. For 75 minutes it’s like a big play concertina’d. There’s six-strong luxury casting though the four main characters are generously framed and the two brief scenes with the other two are finely-chiselled cameos. First-class dialogue throughout stamps this as a play both solidly realist and built to last. Radford himself sourced the realistic set. It’s foregrounded by an office-cum-living room and upstage by Adi’s workdesk. Lighting is uncredited but effectively managed in gulphs of blackout. Costumes are exemplary. The production exudes class.
Rudolf Dassler (Finn Samuels) is a wolf in western Bavaria, or a hog in Herzogenaurach. There’s a svelte touch of American Psycho in Samuels’ performance and Radford’s script. Even his swept hair seems armour-plated. But Rudy’s overheard. His brother’s wife Kathe Dassler (Lula Marsh) mocks him. Clearly there’s a frisson: they’re the strong-minded pair who’ve married what appear doormats. The asymmetry sizzles slightly as Marsh seethes indignation with a tiny bit of admiration for this natural salesman’s sociopathy. Rudy swiftly receives their lawyer Hans (Matteo Caporusso, revealing a sterling-voiced pragmatist) in a scene of hard-boiled deals and killer-lines.
Red-dressed and a woman who’ll assert a new Germany – where women emerge from Nazi shackles to something approaching modernity – Marsh burns through Kathe’s lines. Rudy, irritated yet intrigued, spots an opportunity A frisson develops.
But how much has Rudy betrayed? We swiftly learn he denounced his brother as a Nazi to save himself as the one who joined the party, and cajoled Adi to as well. And Adi, released early from the front to continue his shoe factory and Nazi-directed materials, clearly has questions to answer; and indeed was imprisoned. But is he more guilty? And has his brother planned other coups? The reveals go deeper as the post-war occupation of coercion, surveillance and the threat of the Soviets is never far off, lending the scenes an innate claustrophobia. And the 1948 Olympics loom. Why, though, does Rudy want sole charge (as it were) when he cares nothing for shoes himself? “Anybody can design a fucking shoe” he spits out finally. But CEOs need a passion for what they helm, it’s pointed out.
Adolf Dassler (Edward Tarling) and Kathe Dassler (Lula Marsh). Photo Credit: Jamie Radford
Friedl’s relationship with the Dasslers’ mother too is etched in by imperious Pauline Dassler. Anne Rutter, excellent at inscribing the grand dame of a vanished past, casually bullies Godsmark’s Friedl over a cup of tea. You don’t feel she’d try that with Kathe. It’s a sharp-etched cameo in silver and cream laced with arsenic. As with Caporusso, you regret its brevity. There must be some way of expanding this character and bringing Pauline’s part to generate a little more richness; perhaps in further flashbacks as there’s only one, near the end. Pauline’s adoration of Rudy over Adi is patent, the lineage of narcissism precisely mapped, and Pauline’s reminiscence of their father (delighted as the days draw out from December 21) adding a little to how family dynamics evolved.
Adolf Dassler (Edward Tarling) runs in early on, tousled and dishevelled after testing a new shoe he realises has a spike misplaced. Rudy’s unimpressed. Tarling’s stammering uncertain and proto-geek Adi is clearly out of his depth above the plimsoll line, strangely fortunate in marrying strong and attractive Kathe who believes in him and lends him a backbone. Tarling’s Adi is a study too in rapt idealism – the brothers were keen runners – and humility. It transpires Adi never had any ambitions beyond making shoes, yet founded the company his brother wants to usurp. Scenes between Tarling and Marsh swerve between painful and exalted, as she cajoles Adi to Kathe’s certainty that he’s the “little genius”, the phrase his brother condescends with. Rudy has quoted Jesse Owens the great Black 1936 Olympics runner to bolster their brand; but is quick to say this was 12 years ago whenever Adi uses Owens’ praise as defence. Adi attempts to bargain (literally enacting five stages of grieving in his desperate bartering), but will Rudy even accept a handshake?
There’s layers of historic complicity that implicate both brothers, but Radford’s sympathies are clear. The end is a foreshortened and intriguing one. Currently it’s maanged in voiceover, but originally – and more effectively – it’s voiced directly by the actors. The audience had anticipated this by applause but it can be overcome and will be restored. Caveats over under-use of two actors aside, this play wields a potential beyond its current limitations – both in this brief production and in its current form. And Radford, clearly setting out his dramatic stall in history’s cross-currents, is a voice to watch.
Friedl Dassler (Siân Godsmark). Photo Credit: Jamie Radford