Aldwych Theatre

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...

In a busy season for transfers from Chichester Festival Theatre, here’s one they made some time ago, as Hugh Bonneville reprises his 2019 turn as CS Lewis in a revival of William Nicholson’s 1989 play. Bonneville stars as the Chronicles of Narnia author, whose ordered life as an Oxford don is upended by the arrival of spirited young American poet Joy Davidman. Rachel Kavanaugh directs.