Before it all kicks off: Inside Gerry and Sewell’s rehearsal room
With less than a fortnight to go, Gerry and Sewell are getting West End ready. From a Whitley Bay attic to London’s biggest stage, it's a story of ambition, adversity and belief - on and off stage
There’s a certain energy in a rehearsal room when something important is coming together. A low-level hum that runs between bodies, scripts, colour-coded floor markings and half-finished ideas - charging the air with anticipation and purpose.
Sitting on the sidelines inside Newcastle Theatre Royal’s Studio Theatre, watching Gerry and Sewell take shape ahead of its West End debut, that hum was unmistakable.
This was not a dress rehearsal. There were no costumes, no lights, no finished set. Instead, there were actors in joggers and hoodies, well-thumbed scripts dotted with highlighters, and a creative team pushing, pulling and refining moments that already feel loaded with emotion, humour and heart.
Actors Jack Robertson (Sewell), Dean Logan (Gerry), Chelsea Halfpenny, Becky Clayburn and Erin Mullen moved through scenes that, even stripped back to their bones, landed with force. Laughter came easily. Silence fell when it needed to. You could sense the trust and determination in the room - between cast, the committed creative team, the material… and the weight of what they’re carrying south.
Because what’s happening next is no small thing. From January 13 to 24, Gerry and Sewell will run in the West End, the latest and most audacious chapter in a journey that began in an attic theatre in Whitley Bay and accelerated through sell-out runs at Newcastle’s Live Theatre and the main stage at the Theatre Royal.
The show will play at the Aldwych Theatre, at the top of the Strand in the heart of London’s Theatreland. In the coming days, that stretch of the West End will be bathed in black and white.
It has taken just three years for writer and director Jamie Eastlake to take a defiantly regional story and propel it onto one of the most competitive stages in the world - and he’s done it at breakneck speed.
Announced just eight weeks before opening night, with Christmas wedged squarely in the middle, the West End transfer has required a leap of faith that mirrors the story at the heart of the play. Sets are being built in a warehouse in North Tyneside. A life-size replica of a Tyne and Wear Metro carriage - already iconic from the Newcastle runs - is being prepped for its south-facing trip.
Rehearsals are about to relocate to London before the company, which also includes actors Bill Fellows and Katherine Dow Blyton, moves into the theatre. Everything is happening at once. Everything is against the clock. And yet, remarkably, everything feels completely nailed on.
Watching the scene run throughs and hearing first hand from Jamie what’s in store for the London transfer, what struck me most was how much has grown since earlier iterations of the show – even since the Theatre Royal run which had already taken things up a number of notches since its Live Theatre promotion.
This is not a straight remount. The West End production introduces new and expanded characters – including the aforementioned Chelsea Halfpenny as Gerry’s older sister, Claire - a full and professional ensemble and new music, broadening the world beyond the two lads at its centre.
It feels bigger, richer, more textured, without losing its focus… that being the story of two Gateshead lads from a deprived estate - where hope is thin on the ground and getting out feels like a fantasy - scraping, ducking and diving to find the dosh for Newcastle United season tickets.
The new trailer for Gerry and Sewell, which is playing the Aldwych Theatre in London’s West End from January 13-24. Credit: Meg Jepson
Fuelled by music, puppet dogs and whatever bucket of fast food Sewell can get his hands on, Gerry and Sewell is loud, funny and bruisingly tender - a slice of Tyneside life that doesn’t flinch. Rooted in hardship but lifted by loyalty and humour, it’s a tribute to black-and-white dreams and the people who cling to them when there’s not much else to hold on to.
Jamie has assembled an expanded creative team to meet the demands of a national audience while protecting what he describes as the play’s “black and white heart”.
The show is a co-production with Newcastle Theatre Royal where it will return in June 2026 for a week-long run.
Bosses at the historic venue have thrown its invaluable experience, resources and creatives behind the project - including artist in residence and award-winning writer Laura Lindow and creative engagement producer Mark Calvert.
Regional theatre making the leap to London remains rare and risky, often accompanied by the assumption that work born outside the capital won’t travel. This transfer stands as a rebuttal to that thinking: proof that stories forged in the North East can resonate far beyond it, without losing their edge – or their accent.
Enter associate director and established theatre maker, James Callàs Ball, brought in as the production’s “London eye and ear” - a sounding board to help ensure the story lands with audiences unfamiliar with its regional rhythms and dialect, without sanding down the very thing that gives the play its power.
As Jamie puts it, this is not about watering anything down; it’s about clarity, about making sure every laugh, every punch and every emotional beat hits home without changing the fact that this play has Geordie written through it like a coatless stick of black and white rock, which has been sponsored by a Greggs and Newcastle Brown Ale collab.
The play draws its DNA from novel The Season Ticket and its 2000 cult film adaptation Purely Belter, both written (or co-written in the case of the latter) by Jonathan Tulloch.
And if Tulloch has ever been waiting for the right moment to revisit the world he created - he could do far worse than catch up with Jamie and this company at the end of January.
What has unfolded behind the scenes of this production is, in itself, a story of ambition, resilience and sheer bloody-minded determination. There have been obstacles. There have been unbelievable plot twists. There have been moments where the sensible option would have been to say “you must be bloody joking!”.
Instead, they’ve kept going, driven by the belief that stories like this deserve space on the biggest stages.
Rehearsal rooms are private, vulnerable spaces. Being invited in feels like a big privilege - particularly when a show built on sold-out runs and word-of-mouth belief is being reworked for a stage where the rules are different and the margins far thinner.
And yet, there is no sense of playing things safe. Of asking for permission. It’s clear that this version of Gerry and Sewell is designed not just to survive the West End, but to belong there.
There is also a sense that this is about more than one show. A gala night is planned during the opening week, with a roster of North East notables already on the guest list. The aim is not just celebration, but visibility - a statement that the region’s creative industries and voices deserve attention on the national stage.
Corporate sponsorship opportunities remain available, with the team keen to make the run as big a showcase for the North East as possible. This is an invitation to be part of the story, not just watch it - and the Wor Flags which drape it - unfold.
As the Newcastle rehearsal period nears its conclusion, talk turned inevitably to logistics: trains, lorries, last-minute decisions and the move south. The Metro carriage will travel. The cast will relocate. The hum will follow them. Soon, the lights of the West End will come up on a story that began in a drafty loft and refused to stay there.
It’s easy to romanticise the idea of a West End transfer. Harder to appreciate the graft it takes to get there. Sitting in that Studio Theatre, watching Gerry and Sewell being shaped in real time, it was impossible not to feel that something special is about to step onto a much bigger stage. Brace ya sells, London. The lads are coming.
Tickets for the London run of Gerry & Sewell (January 13-24, 2026) are available from nederlander.co.uk/whats-on/.
The Newcastle Theatre Royal run kicks off on June 9 (Blaydon Races day, of course!) and runs to June 13, 2026. Tickets from theatreroyal.uk
Corporate sponsorship enquiries should be emailed to: Productionseastlake@gmail.com