If the plot sounds familiar…. well, that’s hardly surprising. Gerry and Sewell, two footie-mad Tyneside teenagers, are the protagonists in Johnathan Tulloch’s 2000 novel “The Season Ticket”, which was adapted the same year into the movie “Strictly Belter”. In 2022 Jamie Eastlake’s theatrical adaptation was a huge success at Laurels Whitley Bay before transferring to Live Theatre, a natural home for its gritty local humour. Now it’s enjoying a short run at the Theatre Royal, where first night saw a full house and an enthusiastic reception, obvious from its opening manoeuvre of vigorous audience flag-waving (flags provided by the theatre). We were instructed in this by a recorded voice message from Alan Shearer, whose car our heroes steal in the film but not in this play. And that heralds a problem of tone, for neither the down-beat longing of the novel nor the (ultimately) up-beat energy of the movie quite crystallize on stage. The basic plot concerns the self-definition and respect conferred by that ultimate object of impossible desire, a season ticket for the Cathedral on the hill – and what the lads will do to win it. This played better in the more intimate space of Live Theatre, although the larger set here, complete with Metro train and caravan, works well, providing an effective background to the army of black-clad hoodies whose movement punctuates the action.  Business such as hauling a toilet on stage while flicking nearby audience members with (dirty) water, however, doesn’t translate to a more formal space where it’s simply invisible to part of the auditorium. However, the audience was with it all the way, clearly riding a wave of identity and recognition, as the characters steered between high drama and low comedy in a Gateshead/Newcastle (and at one point even Sunderland) picaresque adventure of hope in strained circumstances. And the dog was bloody brilliant.

Gail-Nina Anderson