Playing to Win shows us, after some time spent kicking around the flanks, how homosexuality and a lifelong love of Australia’s national game can combine to produce a very particular kind of horniness. Whether for technical or structural reasons, the gameplay, while regularly entertaining, doesn’t result in a major score as often as it could.
This often-lively cabaret performance by Will Hanley bills itself as a “one-man love letter to footy, feelings, and Collingwood small forward Jamie Elliott.” The show bursts out of the gates with a belting rendition of the Little River Band’s 1984 tune that gives the piece its title.
Hanley jokes that we no longer have to wait an hour for the titular song — a cheeky subversion of cabaret convention — but at that stage we (at least those few not clearly family, friends, or near-rabid AFL fans) are still unsure what game he’s playing. Coach Hanley knows the cabaret moves, but the match-ups aren’t always ideal.
Beginning in his country Victoria hometown of Leongatha, Hanley recounts his childhood footy beginnings in the 1980s equivalent of Auskick. Photos and anecdotes suggest he was always a Collingwood tragic, though we’re given little insight into the forces that shaped this devotion – potentially rich territory left largely unexplored.
Hanley is joined by accompanist and musical director David Clausen-Wisken on upright piano, equally adept with a delicate ballad or the rowdier demands of a footy anthem. Both performers clearly relish being on stage. Hanley often flashes a toothy smile at his own jokes and the audience’s barracking, though his laddish charm is sometimes undercut by different kinds of looseness in the show.
The first is technical. Hanley struggles at times with a remote controlling images projected behind the stage. Slides are skipped or abandoned too soon, disrupting momentum. Combined with occasional lapses in place, this gives the work an undercooked feel.
There are also structural issues. A black T-shirt with a white line drawing, prominently displayed early on, means little to most punters (though Collingwood fans roar approval) until much later, when the photo that inspired it is finally shown.
Around half-time, it begins to feel as though Hanley hasn’t fully decided who the show is for. The Midsumma blurb promises “a forensic roast of AFL club songs,” and this material lands well with the many footy fans present.
Hanley’s put-downs of rival clubs are amusing, but a significant chunk of stage time goes to this relatively mainstream fare. There’s also competent tap dancing and an illegible chart about growth through trauma. The cost of these flashy detours is less space for the specific story only Hanley can tell.
A central thread of that story concerns one particular Pies goal-kicker and match-winner: Jamie Elliott. Hanley knows Elliott’s stats and achievements inside out, and there’s clearly more than admiration at play. We eventually learn that Hanley has extended similar (ahem) regard to other Collingwood players over the years.
The show, then, isn’t quite a “love letter” so much as an exploration of something less tidy – and of how difficult it has been for Hanley to feel fully at ease with that, particularly in the company of other footy fans. When he digs into how his sexuality operates within football fandom, the material becomes genuinely compelling, hinting at deeper layers beneath the surface.
With a more purposeful build-up and a better-timed run toward these simmering late insights, Hanley could lift the show from offering the occasional highlight to genuine mark-of-the-year territory.
Playing To Win
Chapel Off Chapel (The Loft), 12 Little Chapel Street, Prahran
Performance: Wednesday 28 January 2026
Information: www.midsumma.org.au
Image: Playing To Win (supplied)
Review: Jason Whyte