LET’S start at the end, the moment when the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s A-team of Austin Tichenor, Reed Martin and Matt Rippy rip off their football shirts to reveal a sports bra beneath.

Will that ring a bell with you? Does the name Brandi Chastain mean anything to you? No?

She’s the American footballer who celebrated scoring a decisive penalty in the 1990 Women’s World Cup by doing what I’ve just described.

You can find it on You Tube, and it’s mentioned in passing during Wednesday’s premiere of The RSC’s eighth show to tour Britain, but what is unquestionably an iconic moment in American sport loses plenty in translation to Blighty.

This show isn’t about re-creating sport’s high points. It’s a race through the bizarre world of sports, covering nine categories from dawn until today, across seven continents with writer-directors Tichenor and Martin and regular compadre Rippy opening the show as presenters for the Reduced Shakespeare Company Sports Network in “beautiful downtown York”.

They tended to rely on their considerable gifts for physical comedy rather than sporting knowledge. To really work in Britain, after its transfer from America, they needed more sport, more British sport, more digs to match the jest at Andy Murray’s expense about needing stamina to watch him.

Too many American references sailed over the heads and the team need to decide if their comedic attitude should be one of cynicism or ultimately affection for the crazy world of sports.

After press night, Reed Martin said the boys had already struck off plenty of the material from the first half. This is a work in progress, still working towards the finishing line of an Olympic run at the Arts Theatre in London with four more weeks on the road to quality for the gold medal attained by plenty of their past shows. It must be not so much “Swifter, Higher, Stronger” as sharper, fitter, sportier.

The Reduced Shakespeare Company in The Complete World Of Sports (Abridged), York Theatre Royal, until tomorrow; performances at 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk