THE Season Ticket already has history in our city, after York film-maker Mark Herman converted Jonathan Tulloch's hard-winter novel into the cult film Purely Belter in 2000, Alan Shearer cameo appearance and all.
Now York and Newcastle unite once more as York company Pilot Theatre and Newcastle's Northern Stage collaborate for Lee Mattinson's new stage adaptation that played to full houses in the Toon and now has a four-day Theatre Royal run.
Written by Mattinson with bleak wit and rather more grit than Herman's film, The Season Ticket's story of love and hate, friendship and hardship, football and hope, as out of reach as a rainbow, is directed by Pilot associate director Katie Posner.
She brings a rawness and brutalist truth to this premiere that harks back to the kitchen-sink dramas and the Angry Young Men playwrights of the late-Fifties and Sixties, and once more the new intimacy of the reconfigured main-house auditorium enhances the impact of a very in-your-face production. It takes a while to adjust to the North East accents but that is as it should be.
Jean Chan's set design of terraced house fronts and stadium terracing matches that starkness, everything faded to grey, except for Gerry's mum's gaudy clothes.
Real-life Newcastle United fans Niek Versteeg and Will Graham play Gerry and Sewell, a little and large friendship of troubled teens from Gateshead broken homes, whose dream is to raise enough money for season tickets and "two teas, two sugars, milky" at their beloved St James' Park.
A scene from The Season Ticket. Picture: Topher McGrillis
Mattinson has brought the story up to date to Newcastle's 2015-2016 relegation season, with regular match-day reports by BBC Newcastle commentator Mick Lowes on the progress of both NUFC's descent and Gerry and Sewell's ham-fisted, petty-thieving attempts to stack up £1,000 for the tickets.
The St James' field of dreams is such a contrast to their home lives, as narrated by Versteeg's resourceful Gerry. His errant father (Joe Caffrey) is an abusive drunk, beating up his wife (Victoria Elliott) and 15-year-old Gerry whenever he finds their new address, having also sexually assaulted one daughter in the past.
Sister Claire (Laila Zaidi) is a loose cannon but seeks an escape through education. By contrast, truant Gerry has run-ins with his head teacher and a shop security guard, but somehow keeps bouncing back, while his spirited mum strives to hold the home together and nurture new love with Dan (Kevin Wathen).
Sewell, a big lump of a kind, daft lad, has a father to care for and a relationship with Gemma (Zaidi) that deserves to go better than it does, but the tide is always against both him and Gerry.
Their world is as black and blue as it is black and white, and for all the earthy humour that bursts through the clouds, The Season Ticket is as grim up north east as Steve McLaren's brief reign. This is very much a Geordie story, like Kes belongs to Yorkshire, but they share universal themes of boys trying to make their way in the world and Posner's cast are electric, passionate, heartbreaking too.
The Season Ticket, Pilot Theatre and Northern Stage, York Theatre Royal, 7.30pm tonight and tomorrow; 2.30pm and 7.30pm, Saturday Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
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