A swaggering West End debut bursts with energy and goodwill, but indulgent cruelty and misjudged sentimentality sap its early promise.
The story of Gerry & Sewell captures the story of the production itself.
A plucky little thing from the North East is fired by a dream of going places.
Writer-director Jamie Eastlake set out with a three-strong cast in the dusty attic of a former social club in Whitley Bay in 2022. The production captured a moment, a feeling, and was carried on the shoulders of the community to the Newcastle Theatre Royal.
Now, pinching himself, Eastlake brings his untidy show – complete with a bulging cast, impressive staging and glittery oomph – to the West End, where it remains at heart just as scrappy, just as raucous and chaotic as that opening night at Laurels.
This is the upward trajectory that Gerry (Dean Logan) and Sewell (Jack Robertson) want to pursue. Drifting through graffiti-strewn Gateshead, the feckless, hopeless duo have nothing, but they’re willing to risk it all to buy season tickets to the Gallowgate End of St James’ Park to worship Newcastle. Toon. The Magpies. (“One for sorrow, two for joy” is their bond and mantra).
A little bit of respect
They want, as Gerry says, “a bit of something, a bit of respect, our own space”. The season ticket is their escape route, and they embark on “one last mission” for a better life fired by that most precious ingredient of all – hope.
The third member of the original cast is Becky Clayburn, filling in for the wild elements and chaos of Tyneside: part street rapper, part thug, part force of nature. But now she has her own entourage, a band of hoodie-wearing hooligans and flash mobbers who add stomp and urgency to the proceedings.
The cast is fleshed out by Gerry’s family, with Emmerdale veteran Katherine Dow Blyton particularly good as faded matriarch Mrs McCarten, and Erin Mullen affecting as sullen and dislocated daughter Bridget.
Rusty the imperilled dow (c) Von Fox Promotions
From three originals, then, to a cast of 32, all managed well by director Eastlake’s kinetic and swift production.
We’re in for a good night.
Or are we?
Where it all goes wrong
The show begins with a surge of energy, the stage heaving and bouncing, the audience – many dressed in the black and white of Toon – waving flags and cheering. And everyone’s thinking: this is going to be a blast.
It doesn’t quite work out like that. The production betrays its roots for good and ill, its expansion providing brio but also serving to amplify the weaknesses.
Crucially, Gerry and Sewell’s story is not the joyous and rascally caper the publicity shots depict. Yes, there are laughs – mostly thanks to Robertson’s depiction of hangdog and ever-hungry Sewell. There are good lines and strong visual gags. And yes, the bond between the two is affirming.
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But this is, for vast spans of time, an exploration of misery and cruelty, with every type of evil concocted, often needlessly and to the point of indulgence. Too frequently the production drifts into synthetic misery porn, counterbalanced by a misjudged working-class romanticism, where the dumped mattress is elevated to the status of Keats’s Grecian Urn.
The partisan audience – up for a good time – becomes fidgety and disorientated. On press night, one audience member cried out, “Oh no!” Not, perhaps, at the horror of the confected act of violence we were witnessing, but shock that the production would go to such a ridiculous extreme to elicit a reaction.
However, for all its flaws, there is an unstructured, throw-it-all-in-and-see-what-sticks vibe, including puppetry and fantasy music numbers. This creates sufficient goodwill to prompt a standing ovation from a previously twitchy but ultimately forgiving crowd. A fitting conclusion for a production aiming to emulate the Gallowgate.
Final score from the Magpies:
Sorrow: 1
Joy: 2
Gerry & Sewell runs at the Aldwych Theatre until 24 January 2025
This review first appeared in The Spy In The Stalls