Back in black (and white): rehearsals for Gerry & Sewell's final season get underway
With the Theatre Royal draped in black and white, the cast have assembled ahead of the hit play’s triumphant homecoming
It didn’t take long for the laughter to start.
Not the kind which comes from a punchline landing in front of an audience, but the knowing belly laughs of a cast rediscovering a story they know inside out – and three new recruits realising exactly what they’ve signed up for.
This week, Cultured. North East was invited into the rehearsal room for the first day of preparations for what is being billed as the final production of Gerry & Sewell at Newcastle Theatre Royal.
Outside, the venue is wrapped in black and white ahead of next week’s run. Inside, around a table scattered with scripts, coffee cups and healthy snacks (chicken nugget-loving Sewell would be disgusted), the latest cast assembled for the table read of a play which has travelled from Whitley Bay to the West End, while maintaining every last bit of its Geordie heart.
Dean Logan and Jack Robertson are back as Gerry and Sewell, alongside returning cast members Becky Clayburn, Matty Renton and Erin Mullen.
Joining them are three new faces: Angela Lonsdale as Gerry’s mam, Mrs McCarten; David Nellist as his deeply unlikeable father, Mr McCarten; and Sammy Dobson as sister Clare McCarten, a character introduced for the London run and originally played by Chelsea Halfpenny.
While the trio of newcomers haven’t been part of the Gerry and Sewell family before, they did recently share a Tyneside stage in a TV dating sketch entitled Blind Gatesheed at the Sunday for Sammy fundraising concerts in February.
For Angela (Coronation Street, Doctors, Vera), who will be making her Newcastle Theatre Royal debut, arriving for rehearsals offered a special moment.
“It was quite emotional when I got off the Metro this morning and saw the Theatre Royal dressed up in black and white,” she said.
“As soon as I read the script I was a big ‘yes’. I’d seen the Gerry and Sewell extract that they did at Sunday for Sammy and thought it was fantastic.
“I’m really looking forward to getting stuck into rehearsals. There’s such a great team of people and everyone has been so welcoming.”
David Nellist, who has recently finished a UK tour of I, Daniel Blake, admitted he was relishing the chance to step into the shoes of one of the production’s less lovable characters.
Having seen the show during its acclaimed West End run at London’s Aldwych Theatre, he said he was struck by the sight of a venue more accustomed to hosting major national productions transformed by Newcastle United colours.
“It was quite something to see a West End theatre looking like that,” he said.
“I think it’s a great piece of theatre. The week after we saw it, I was having a meal opposite the Aldwych and looked over to see posters for Hugh Bonneville who was starring in the next play which was on - and it was like, ‘that’s what it normally looks like!’
“Seeing it bathed in black and white and that atmosphere inside - brilliant.”
Meanwhile, Newcastle comedian and Casualty star Sammy Dobson confessed to feeling a mixture of excitement and nerves about joining the cast.
“I’m absolutely thrilled to be part of this - aside from crapping myself to follow Chelsea Halfpenny!” she laughed.
“I saw the play when it was starting out in Laurels in Whitley Bay - it’s just amazing how far it has come.
“It’s so of the North East. My mam has been checking whether I’ve got a Toon top she can borrow for when she comes - you don’t get that every night at the Theatre Royal!”
For those who haven’t managed to see any of the North East runs of Gerry and Sewell so far (Laurels Whitley Bay, 2022; Live Theatre, 2023; and the Theatre Royal, 2024) the play was adapted by Olivier Award-winning Jamie Eastlake from Jonathan Tulloch’s novel The Season Ticket.
It tells the story of two Gateshead lads from the wrong side of the Metro tracks determined to secure season tickets for Newcastle United and the hope which comes with them.
The novel also inspired cult Geordie film Purely Belter (2000).
Produced by Eastlake Productions and Newcastle Theatre Royal, next week’s run which kicks off on June 9, (could there be a better opening night date for this show than the one immortalised in The Blaydon Races?) will see the return of live music, puppet dogs and support from Wor Flags.
If this really is the final chapter for Gerry and Sewell, the cast seem determined to make sure it goes out exactly as it came in: full of heart, humour and unapologetic Geordie pride.
You can catch it a Newcastle Theatre Royal from June 9-13. Tickets from the website… and don’t forget your Toon top.