Alreet pet? First up, an admission. I might have been born in Newcastle and raised in Gateshead, but given my lifelong support for the other football team in Tyne and Wear, you’d be well within your rights to question whether I might harbour a slight bias against Gerry and Sewell, the stage play based on Geordie classic Purely Belter.
Set in the north-east of England at the turn of the millennium, and itself an adaptation of Jonathan Tulloch’s novel The Season Ticket, Mark Herman’s cult comedy film follows teenage ‘radgie gadgies’ Gerry and Sewell on an ill-fated quest to beg, borrow and steal enough cash to buy season tickets for their beloved Newcastle United, evading angry neighbours, bullish English teachers, sanctimonious social workers and the local constabulary in the process. With its blend of Byker Grove plotting and Ken Loach-esque social realism, even Mackems like myself have a soft spot for this cult piece of local heritage, but for Newcastle fans it apparently warrants almost as many re-watches as Kevin Keegan’s infamous Man United rant.
Written and directed by Olivier-winning local lad Jamie Eastlake, the film’s second adaptation for the stage – following one by Pilot Theatre and Northern Stage in 2016 – was a hit when it premiered at North Tyneside’s tiny Laurel Theatre in 2022, transferring to Newcastle’s Live Theatre and then the still-larger Theatre Royal en route to its short run on the West End this month.
On for just two weeks, its stint at the Aldwych Theatre might be a short one, but you do have to question whether it might be one marquee transfer too many for a play whose success has surely had a lot to do with the local community’s nostalgia for the source material and general dedication to the Toon Army. There aren’t all that many Geordies in That London.
Still, even the most footie-averse audience members will be stirred by Gerry and Sewell’s rousing opening sequence, which successfully evokes a match-day atmosphere via a voiceover from Alan Shearer, a mass of balaclava-clad dancers and black-and-white flags planted among the audience by Newcastle United fan collective Wor Flags.
There’s plenty more to like besides. Power Props’ set is a real stunner, incorporating a moving Tyneside metro carriage, complete with authentic graffiti tags. Lead actors Dean Logan (Gerry) and Jack Robertson (Sewell) have a believable rapport, and Robertson in particular displays a real knack for comic timing. Fans of the film will note that Eastlake’s script retains many of its best-loved lines, while adding a handful of great fourth wall breaks and one-liners; a quip about the duo’s former school teacher being worse than any Ken Loach character gets a particularly big laugh. There are some tender musical moments provided by Gerry’s mum (Katherine Dow Blyton) and sister (Chelsea Halfpenny), too, incorporating traditional northern folk song ‘The Waters of Tyne’ and a number from local hero Sam Fender.
There’s a lot that doesn’t work, though. The plot gets a bit lost, particularly towards the end of the first act, when it’s unclear whether we’re in a flashback or the present day. At times it feels like less of a play than a series of semi-improvised scenes thrown haphazardly together. Some of the pathos of the film is arguably lost by the decision to portray Gerry and Sewell as fully grown adult men rather than sympathetic teenagers that have been dealt a bad hand in life.
And most grating of all is the overly florid scene setting done by Becky Clayburn’s narrator, whose performance poetry-esque delivery tries way too hard to romanticise Gateshead’s industrial landscape while ultimately making it sound like a hopeless dump. As a north-east native, I bristle at the sheer frequency with which northern characters appearing on the London stage are characterised as braindead peasants, and it was disappointing to see a play that hails from this part of the world lean into the stereotypes rather than trying to challenge them. It gets quite exhausting having to explain that it isn’t that grim up north really.
Perhaps we could compare this plucky little play to erstwhile NUFC winger Miguel Almirón; it puts in one hell of a shift and displays the occasional moment of brilliance, but the end product is ultimately somewhat lacking. Still, there’ll always be a soft spot for it on Tyneside.