Gerry and Sewell at Aldwych: Gateshead duo chase Newcastle United season ticket

Gerry and Sewell, written and directed by Jamie Eastlake, is playing at the Aldwych theatre in London. The play follows two hard-up reprobates in Gateshead who dream of getting a Newcastle United season ticket and is adapted from an award‑winning book that also became the film Purely Belter.

It began life at a 60‑seater social club in north Tyneside in 2022 and has now reached the West End. The production is based on Jonathan Tulloch’s novel The Season Ticket (published 2000) and mixes picaresque exploits — Gerry (Dean Logan) and Sewell (Jack Robertson) scouring the Tyne for items to sell or carrying out burglaries — with darker family drama involving poverty, domestic violence, alcoholism and sexual abuse.

Eastlake adds song and dance, with choreography by Lucy Marie Curry and Sean Moon, a balaclava‑clad ensemble and moments of spoken‑word poetry; there are vibrant performances and some effective numbers, notably those sung by Gerry’s aspiring singer sister Claire (Chelsea Halfpenny).

But the script is described as messy and incohesive, with sudden musical breakouts, club beats and pop songs that do not always progress the story and can cause confusion. The second half contains a few powerful family scenes, including Gerry’s other sister Bridget (Erin Mullen) in a monologue said to have shades of Gary Owen’s Iphigenia in Splott, yet these are diluted by long comic diversions around a dog and by toilet humour, meta‑comedy and jokes about Sunderland FC.

Key Topics

Culture, Aldwych Theatre, Gateshead, Jamie Eastlake, Jonathan Tulloch, Newcastle United