A special play that’s been a long time in the making is to be premiered at Northern Stage this month – and it would be a surprise if didn’t elicit a tear or two.
It began years ago, pre-Covid, and sad circumstances have seen it evolve from the originally intended piece of documentary (or verbatim) theatre into something more magical and free-ranging.
The title, It’s a Wonderful Us, gives a flavour of it, with its shades of film director Frank Capra’s much-loved screen favourite.
It had a brief, exploratory run in the studio at Live Theatre three years ago under its original title, Without Us, when one audience member deemed it “a totally outstanding piece of work and beautiful in its complexity”.
But even then it had been four years in development and things have moved on. Writer and director Steve Gilroy explains that he changed the title as the nature of the piece changed.
“It’s a bit of a corollary to It’s a Wonderful Life, I suppose, asking the question: What’s the value of a life?”
Northern Stage, where the play in its finished form begins its tour, describe the play as a “funny and heartfelt show that traces one man’s journey with learning disabilities”.
Steve takes me back to the beginning, to his suggestion to fellow board members of The Lawnmowers, the Gateshead theatre company run by and for people with learning difficulties, that he initiate a documentary piece.
This has been his forte over the years, as seen in acclaimed plays like Motherland (2008), based on interviews with women associated with combatants in Iraq and Afghanistan, and In the Middle of the West (2015), recalling the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing which cost 168 lives.
Of this new production, he says: “My starting point, I suppose, was thinking about what happens to people with learning difficulties when their parents get older.
“How does that feel? How do people deal with that, with all the challenges they face with the various institutions?”
Steve got to know Lawnmowers ensemble member Andrew McLeod, who was keen to work on the project, and also became close to his parents, Alec and Alice.
“Theirs is a remarkable story, that’s the first thing. They lived in County Durham (Andrew still does) and ran a chain of successful sweetshops until they lost it in the aftermath of the Black Wednesday financial crisis.
“It was a struggle but they came back from bankruptcy and managed to get their house back.”
Always uppermost in the couple’s thoughts were their two sons, Andrew, who has learning difficulties, and his brother, who Steve says is quite severely disabled.
Steve knew Alec had been diagnosed in his fifties with the blood cancer Hodgkin lymphoma. Now aged 70, he was particularly vulnerable when Covid reared its ugly head in 2020.
The theatre project, inevitably, was put on hold.
When Steve picked it up again after the pandemic, circumstances had changed. Alec had learned his cancer had returned and the prognosis wasn’t good. Alice had Alzheimer’s.
Suddenly the scenario Steve had wondered about at the start of the project was starting to become a reality.
Alec died six weeks before the performances at Live Theatre and Alice not long afterwards, leaving their sons without them but well catered for since the couple had ensured they could stay in the family home.
“We were then in a situation of both parents having passed away and it was up to Andrew (McLeod) if he wanted to continue with the project at all,” recalls Steve.
“He really did, but we decided to give it a more fictional context.
“The guys would come in one day a week and we’d have lunch in my office (at Northumbria University where Steve was associate professor of theatre and performance until his departure in April).
“There was always this humorous banter because they’d known each other for years. I’d been trying to find some way of including the interviews I’d done and suddenly I saw them as a comedy double act.
“Ginger (Andrew Robson’s nickname and the character he plays) loves TV comedy so it started to come together.”
While Andrew Robson is Ginger, Andrew McLeod is cast as Darren. The third member of the cast, Jake Jarratt, who is not learning disabled, plays Darren’s dad.
Says Steve: “The idea now is that Andrew’s character’s father has died - it wasn’t acknowledged in the first production because it hadn’t happened – and he’s determined to get the double act back together in his memory.”
In this new fictional world, the father used to write the scripts and the gags for the pair, and also built the sets and props which have been stored for years in the garage.
When Ginger turns up again after 20 years, the plan gains momentum and we find them preparing to revive their act in a Durham working men’s club.
Steve is happy with the piece and says Andrew Robson is happy that one of the tour venues is the Queen’s Hall Arts Centre in Hexham, where he’s a well-known member of the community.
He believes Alec would also have approved.
“I think he’d be over the moon that this is happening. He was very enthusiastic and supportive of Andrew and all his creative endeavours.
“And at the heart of it, Alec’s testimony is still there and that original story’s still in there but woven into this more magical story.”
He believes the play speaks honestly about the challenges faced by its protagonist, “the societal constraints around him and the complexities of family relationships”.
The Lawnmowers, currently celebrating their 40th anniversary, say Steve’s play “aims to broaden representation, challenge assumptions and increase the visibility of learning-disabled artists in the North East and across the wider theatre sector”.
Steve, Newcastle-based and now freelancing through his company Murmur Theatre, has put together an extensive tour with further 2027 dates to be announced in due course.
For now you can catch It’s a Wonderful Us at Northern Stage on Saturday, October 17; Friargate Theatre, York (October 23 and 24); Queen’s Hall Arts Centre, Hexham (November 12); Arts Centre Washington (November 19); and the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough (November 24).