The Season Ticket Northern Stage

On Friday 23rd and 30^th of September 2016 I experienced performances of the Season Ticket performed by Pilot at Northern stage 23^rd to 8^th October followed by York Theatre Royal 12^th to 15^th, Winchester Theatre Royal 20^th 22^nd and Dundee Rep 25^th Oct-27. Despite the dialect difficulties with those unfamiliar with Geordie it is a great pity that the many more theatre goers will not experience this brilliantly scripted very   funny dose of kitchen sink realism on the impact of international corporate capitalism on children and teenagers, who are part of poor families in what I call the economic underclass

I do not use underclass in a pejorative way but to cover those living in or separately from their families who lack the means to provide more than the basics of food and shelter. The irony of the impact of professional football is the stars of premier league earn more in a week than many of the families do in half a decade such has become the level in economic injustice and inequality in the 5^th richest economy in the world. I write this as the first indication of Tory Party Panic to the rise of Jeremy Corbyn and Socialism in the 21^st century as Damien Green announces that the Party is to abandon its attack on the long term sick and disabled abolishing annual reassessments designed to reduce public expenditure supporting some of the neediest while protecting international capitalists from paying their taxes and allowing internal and national crime organisations to flourish.

The play is based on the book of the same title by Johnathan Tulloch which I have now purchased together with a DVD of the film version Purely Belter certificate 15 and copies of his other books, The Lottery where I have experienced a production of the play at the Customs House Theatre in South Shields, Give us this Day and the Bonny Lad. I will view and read and report if my assessment from the theatrical experiences reflects the written word and where later this month the national centre of the written word is to be opened in South Shields.

The family in the play continue to be terrorised by the male coward of a father who has raped the twin school teenage sister of the main character, a truant, foul mouthed and a thief and beats up his wife and son periodically, sometimes drunk, sending both to hospital and defying a court restraining order. What the central character, Gerry, brilliantly played by Niek Vesteeg, survives through his going is his friendship with Sewell played by Will Graham another young actor with a great future although the friendship leads both in trouble and into acts of betrayal to keep the Friendships together. Victoria Elliot as the mother, Lala Zaidi who plays an older sister and also girl friend of Sewell together with Joe Caffrey and Ken Wathen who between them play father, step father, headmaster, school social worker and store security contribute with powerful, sometimes very funny, sometimes biting humour credible performances.

At the core of the play is the importance of football in the life of many cities, towns and surrounding communities and which I have been part of since being taken as a child at Christmas and Easter to Croydon’s Football club Crystal Palace following them as a teenager with less than 500 supporters in the old former third division south, a few games at Oxford City when at Ruskin, got once to Anfield when in Cheshire and  experienced  being stoned after a  game at Everton, running for life at Spurs, leaving early from the Arsenal because of police  crowd demonstration that went wrong,  staff  stolen at Man City, on Tube trains wrecked after matches  between Sunderland and Sunderland,  by West Ham crews rioting against police stopping  a  Chelsea crew getting on to the same station.

As a teenager at Palace we avoided the match with Millwall because their crew came into in the ground for fight as did thugs at Chelsea in and out of the ground where the Right Wing extremists canvassed from stalls before games started.

When I arrived in the North East in 1974 I knew when a goal was scored at Roker Park working in the back garden so I went and was quickly hooked.  The Toon army shouted louder when they came with a significant section of racists although racism and tribalism and religious division, homophobia have been endemic in the north east among the working and middle class along with tolerance of swearing, physical violence and drunkenness with drug addiction and its funding more recent addition from the late 1960’s along with organised crime.

My first visit to the Arsenal was to see Stanley Mathew playing for Blackpool although I only saw on half of the field of play afraid to be handed over the standing crowd of over 50000 crowd to the front. I gave up on Sunderland when they went into third and looked for a time going to the fourth, and then thrilled by Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle who nearly did a Leicester, and now after a decade of continuing failure and Sky I pick and mix what I see and when.

But I understand the match day experience of meeting up with friends for a meal and drink before or after and sometimes bot, hoping but never expecting a win, miraculous play and an exciting moment or two. The reality of Tyne and Wearside with 100000 attending the two clubs on a consistent basis is that locally born heroes have become memories as have sides unless they are pushing for promotion as Newcastle are once again or successfully fighting relegation which Sunderland are struggling to do. The problem has been club ownerships and buying the wrong players for the task to hand and I apply this to political leaderships and politicians all too frequently imported from outside the region and with no understanding the history of how the local community has worked.

There is also a problem that International football has become corrupt and an ally of unscrupulous international capitalism and the national game has been infected as recent development reveal although the failure appears centred on the English Premiership . The abject failure of the English National Team is unacceptable.  It is time for football lovers to reject and rebel in a nonviolent, democratic and constructive way against clubs which betray and persistently fail for decades although the continuing appeal to lads like Gerry will remain. Interestingly the family get their revenge as the play ends.