Curtain up on Exe Men: the glorious tale of Chiefs' rise

Ladies and gentlemen, it's almost time to take your seats. The most compelling West Country drama since Poldark?

- Robert Kitson

Friday Night Lights with pasties? Or, if you like, a little dash of Scrumpy & Western? Never let it be said we lack creative enthusiasm out here in the sticks, nor the desire to offer local theatregoers something refreshingly different.

Welcome, either way, to the world's most improbable new stage play. How else to summarise a production about the rise of an unflashy Devon rugby club, based on the book Exe Men by - there's no easy way to say this - yours truly. Trust me, watching professional actors rehearse scenes that started life on your own keyboard is a surreal experience.

Fortunately Exe Men the play - which opens next week - has been written by someone with significantly better credentials. Remember the BBC's brilliant Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes? Detective Gene Hunt firing up the Quattro? The show's co-creator Ashley Pharoah has specialised in TV screenwriting but also loves his rugby and was instantly intrigued when Martin Berry, creative director at Exeter's Northcott Theatre, approached him.

It was brave of them because rugby - with wonderful exceptions such as Up 'n' Under, Stand Up And Fight, and Grav - can be a tricky theatrical theme. How do you improve, dramatically speaking, on Exeter going from lower-league anonymity to the champions of Europe in little over a decade? Particularly if everyone knows the ending? Or if some people watching don't really like sport?