Alfie Allen: ‘There has to be something on the line for it to matter’

Play the man, not the cards.” It’s a credo that goes to the heart of the game of poker – and it’s central to Patrick Marber’s 1995 play Dealer’s Choice, which is being revived at London’s Donmar Theatre this month. Poker is a simple game of statistical probability, but also a complex mesh of psychology and personality, and no one wins by relying on maths alone. In poker, the harder someone tries to make themselves unreadable, the more likely they are to show everything. It’s this sense of enigma that is at the heart of so many of Alfie Allen’s performances, which, in recent years, have encompassed a Tony-nominated turn on Broadway, primetime BBC dramas and acclaimed film roles. There’s a sense of self-containment but also of still waters running deep. It’s no surprise that the play’s producers have cast Allen as Frankie, considered the best poker player among the friends who play a weekly game together in what was Marber’s debut.

Having caught the laddish zeitgeist in its year of release, Dealer’s Choice has proved endlessly revivable; it’s knotty and complex enough to plausibly return and make sense in any number of different eras and contexts. It centres around a group of men – all working in the same restaurant, all struggling with thwarted dreams and all hoping, slightly desperately for something better. They’re united by their poker games; a realm in which they can take responsibility and simultaneously surrender it.

In common with many of the cast members, Allen had never played poker before rehearsals for the play began. But their first revelation was the most important. “We learnt that there’s got to be something on the line for it to matter,” he says. “We were all just betting with fake chips, but we realised that it doesn’t really mean anything unless you’re playing with your own money. And as an actor, that’s definitely at the core of what I try and figure out about every part I play: what’s at stake? There are the obvious things that are at stake in terms of money but you try and dig a little deeper.”

In its Donmar incarnation, the play sits comfortably within the current discourse around masculinity. Allen’s Frankie is a cocky but slightly brittle young alpha-male. He’s not only the best poker player in the group but a prolific ladies’ man to boot. Is there, though, slightly less to him than meets the eye? As the group bickers over the cards, all of them end up unconsciously revealing slightly more about themselves than they’d like.

This is probably not a trait that can ever be applied to Alfie Allen in person. There’s never any danger of him overplaying his hand. When we meet in the Donmar’s Covent Garden offices, he’s unfailingly affable despite a long day of rehearsals – a process he seems to be enjoying every bit as much as the actual prospect of performance. He’s sympathetic and amused rather than irritable when my recording device malfunctions and generous with his time. And yet there’s a slight sense of guardedness about him.

And really, that’s not too surprising. As the son of famously garrulous and unguarded actor, presenter, comic and general overlord of Eighties and Nineties excess, Keith Allen, Alfie learnt about the pleasures and perils of the limelight at a young age. The success – and tabloid-related travails – of his singer-sister Lily presumably drove the point home. Questions about his family elicit lengthy pauses and not much more. You suspect he’s not so much unwilling to talk about them as slightly sick of the questions. “My family is my family, you know?” he says.

What, you suspect, does animate him is his work, which is increasingly both varied and impressive. Dealer’s Choice captures the robust, often combative nuances of male friendship brilliantly. “That’s sometimes how a strong friendship is built,” as Allen puts it. “You can go to the extremes and then kind of go back to ‘actually, we’re alright aren’t we?’ He’s also modest enough to give Marber most of the credit for this. “Patrick’s writing really does the work for you in that respect,” he says. “There are no big, performative monologues in this. It’s always about what the other person is doing. That’s how it becomes a proper dance.”

But it takes two to tango. And more and more, it seems Allen is building a portfolio of vulnerable men in extremis. Alongside Frankie, there’s his wracked, tormented Theon Greyjoy in Game of Thrones (“an amazing, crazy 10 years of my life… that took me to places I didn’t think I could go”). The torture of Theon in the show pivoted around castration, emasculation and humiliation. Last year, Allen played the title role in McVeigh, a timely exploration of America’s deadliest domestic terrorist, Timothy McVeigh, who perpetrated the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, killing 167 people, including 19 children. And in 2022, there was Steven Knight’s SAS: Rogue Heroes in which he played another real-life character, Jock Lewes, the founding principal training officer of the regiment and a man who combined extreme personal discipline with a maverick streak of wildness.

In realising his screen version of Lewes, Allen did something very characteristic. He offered up a performance that was expressive while being entirely without ego. “I didn’t want to veer too far from the version of him I’d read about – I just looked at the love letters that he wrote to his wife-to-be,” he says. “There’s a whole book of them and that was my source material. I didn’t really want to jazz it up or put my spin on it – I wanted to stay true to what the real life version was”.

It’s tempting here to make a comparison to Alfie’s father Keith, who, for all of his charisma (in fact, probably, because of it), seems to essentially play Keith Allen in every role. Alfie Allen was famously raised in the public eye – Lily has spoken of evenings where the siblings were left upstairs at the Groucho Club while their dad enjoyed himself in the bar downstairs – and has explored the party animal lifestyle himself. But there’s something else in a character like Jock Lewes; a sense of ingrained self-denial that feels like a revealingly antithetical response to this. “Jock was an aloof disciplinarian,” Allen says. “He was raised in a Protestant household, so maybe [the SAS] was his outlet. It gave him a way of channelling his need for structure.” Could something similar be said of Allen himself – and in particular, his ability to disappear into character?

Like the culture itself, it feels like Allen has come a long way. He and Theo Barklem-Biggs (fellow SAS Rogue Hero and one of his co-stars in Dealer’s Choice) set up a therapeutic forum for the cast and crew while on set in Morocco. “There was a bunch of people who didn’t know each other, all plonked in the middle of the desert,” Allen explains. “Which is a bit like what it would be like in the army I guess! It was really good to have that kind of outlet, where everyone felt they could sit around and speak to each other.” For the duration of the run at the Donmar, he and Barklem-Biggs are sharing a flat in central London – there’s a sense of intimacy and honesty, both in and out of character.

So when Allen talks about what’s at stake in the context of Dealer’s Choice, it’s clear that he’s talking about more than money. Dealer’s Choice, like most of the actor’s recent parts, is about how men talk to each other – and in some cases, what happens when they don’t.

But have things moved on since the play was first staged? “I guess they have in terms of talking about love and intimacy and mental health,” he says. “Obviously, I was only eight or nine in 1995 so it wasn’t all that evident to me then but in terms of things being better now, maybe then there was just a kind of unspoken understanding… that sometimes men would just bury things and move on. Whereas now, I think we feel more free to build on that and talk.” In terms of playing the man and not the cards, it feels like Dealer’s Choice – and Alfie Allen himself – has found itself in tune with another cultural moment. He might not be a born gambler. But he certainly isn’t playing it safe either. He’d almost certainly be an excellent poker player, I suggest. “I’d like to think I could be a good bluffer,” he replies. “But it’s all about knowing when to bet.”

‘Dealer’s Choice’ is at the Donmar Warehouse until 7 June

Freddie Flintoff’s horror Top Gear crash shown in documentary trailer

Images of Freddie Flintoff’s terrifying Top Gear accident have been released as part of the forthcoming Disney+ documentary about his horror crash.

The former cricketer, 46, was involved in a near-fatal incident that left him with significant facial injuries and broken ribs while filming the motoring show Top Gear in December 2022.

The crash led the BBC to suspend production for the “foreseeable future”, deeming it inappropriate to continue. He received £9m in compensation as a result of his injuries.

In the trailer for new documentary Flintoff, the sportsman reflected on the horrifying crash, which saw him retreat from public life for over half a year.

“I’ve lived under [the] radar for seven months,” Flintoff said in the preview. “One of the real frustrations was the speculation – that’s why I’m doing this now. What actually happened.”

Speaking about his “life-altering” injuries, the cricketer said: “I’m not saying I’m embracing them, but I’m not trying to hide my scars.”

He added: “It’s almost like a reset. I’m trying to find out what I am now. I’ve always seemed to be able to flick a switch, I’ve got to find that switch again.”

Flintoff will explore the ramifications of his accident in the new documentary, which will premiere in the UK and Ireland on 25 April.

His wife Rachael Wools, will also appear in the film. The pair married in March 2005 after they met at Edgbaston Cricket Ground three years earlier.

Also being interviewed for the documentary are the sportsman’s close friends: cricketer Michael Vaughan, presenter James Corden and comedian Jack Whitehall.

Flintoff returned to screens last year with a BBC series titled Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams on Tour, in which he opened up about that crash. He revealed that he still suffers nightmares, flashbacks and anxiety.

Speaking in Field of Dreams, he said: “I don’t want to sit and feel sorry for myself. I don’t want sympathy. I’m struggling with my anxiety, I have nightmares, I have flashbacks – it’s been so hard to cope,” he said in a trailer for the show.

“But I’m thinking if I don’t do something, I’ll never go. I’ve got to get on with it.”

Flintoff admitted that the after-effects of the crash might follow him “for the rest of my life” and said he believes he is lucky to be alive after he flipped the Morgan Super three-wheeled car while filming Top Gear.

He said after the crash: “It’s going to be a long road back and I’ve only just started and I am struggling already and I need help. I really am.”

He added: “I’m not the best at asking for it. I need to stop crying every two minutes. I am looking forward to seeing the lads and being around them. I really am.”

Flintoff will premiere exclusively on Disney+ in the UK and Ireland on 25 April.

Why ‘Disagreeing Well’ Could Save Us All

You’re laughing with friends, perhaps enjoying a few drinks down the pub, when all of a sudden, one of those friends drops a clanger of a comment that hits you sideways. Maybe it’s political, maybe it’s personal, but whatever it is it’s a gut punch that lands in direct opposition to something you strongly believe in.

An awkward silence. Your jaw tightens. You scan their face for a trace of irony, but there’s none to be found. Now what?

In that moment, you have a choice. Do you launch into a rebuttal, flinging facts and stats like ninja stars, risking an evening of tension and raised voices? Or do you shut down, politely nod, change the subject, and leave the disagreement to fester quietly beneath the surface?

This moment, with all its visceral discomfort, is something we all recognise. The physical response to conflict is real: adrenaline surges, heart races, breath quickens. We’re wired for fight or flight, and difficult conversations trigger both instincts. Either we go to battle or we retreat.

And therein lies the problem: we’re losing the ability to do anything in between.

Nuance versus viral outrage

Social media supercharges this dynamic. Platforms supposedly designed to connect us can drive individuals further apart, with disagreement online becoming less about discussion and more about demolition. A 2021 study by the Pew Research Center found that 64% of people say social media has a mostly negative effect on how things are going in their country, with political division and misinformation topping the list of concerns. It’s a space where nuance is drowned out by viral outrage and where algorithmic echo chambers reinforce rather than challenge our views.

In this climate, it’s easy to point fingers; to blame “them” for being unreasonable, misinformed, or even dangerous. But the hard truth is, it’s not just them, it’s all of us. We’re all participants in this culture of binary thinking whether we realise it or not. And if we want things to change, we have to start by looking inward and recognising our own reflexes and assumptions, and then choosing to engage rather than to avoid.

The stakes are too high not to. We’re living through volatile, uncertain and complex times. From the cost-of-living crisis and global conflicts to the climate emergency and the rise of fake news, the challenges we face require cooperation, not competition. We need solutions, not slogans, and we sure won’t find those solutions by shouting past each other or retreating into ideological corners.

A fractured global landscape

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2025 paints a sobering picture of our current trajectory. Societal polarisation ranks as the fourth most severe risk over the next two years, closely tied to inequality, which holds the seventh spot. These fractures are not just social, they’re systemic, threatening to destabilise political and economic institutions worldwide.

What’s more, nearly one in four experts surveyed identified armed conflict as the most pressing global risk for 2025, surpassing concerns like extreme weather and economic instability. This escalation underscores how deeply divisions, be they ideological, political, or social, can erode the foundations of global cooperation.

Time to lean in

So what’s the answer? It all starts with accepting the discomfort of disagreement, asking better questions and listening with the aim of understanding rather than winning. That doesn’t mean compromising our values or avoiding difficult truths. It means being curious about how others see the world, recognising the humanity behind every opinion, and searching for common ground, however small. It means moving forward together, even – maybe especially – when we don’t see eye to eye.

This isn’t a new idea, of course. More than 2,000 years ago, Socrates was already showing us how it’s done. He understood that disagreement “done well” was essential to the pursuit of truth. His method of asking questions, challenging assumptions and encouraging others to do the same, wasn’t about scoring points. It was about progress, growth and building something better through conversation. Although we’ll never know how long old Socrates might have lasted on X before begging Zeus to lightning bolt the lot of us…

The spirit of open, critical dialogue has long been associated with universities. They are, in many ways, the heirs to Socrates’ legacy; spaces where ideas are tested, where disagreement is part of the learning process, and where diverse perspectives are meant to coexist in meaningful tension.

In today’s climate, that ideal is being tested. Protests, polarisation, and real concerns about safety, speech, and belonging have created complex and often painful challenges on campuses around the world. But in spite of these difficulties, and in many ways, because of them, universities remain among the best places we have to model what it means to disagree well: to be rigorous but respectful, passionate but principled, open but discerning.

They remind us that the goal isn’t to be right all the time, but to get it right eventually. It’s a process, and it requires courage, humility, and a willingness to sit across from someone who sees the world differently and still choose to talk.

Moving forward together

And that’s what we need more of right now. Not more dead certainty, outrage, or noise, but more conversation. Messy, thoughtful, honest conversation, whether it’s in the pub with friends, across the seminar hall or being represented on our screens and streets.

Disagreeing well isn’t about who wins, it’s about how we move forward together. In an age defined by division, the ability to sit with difference, to challenge without contempt, and to talk without tearing down isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s essential. “Why disagreeing well could save us all” isn’t hyperbole or just a catchy headline; it’s a quiet truth hiding in plain sight.

Civil debate – honest, open, and grounded in respect – might just be one of the most powerful tools we have. The question is: are we ready to use it?