It seems impossible that a decade has passed since the release of Ken Loach’s uniquely powerful Newcastle-set movie “I, Daniel Blake”. I say uniquely because the film deals with issues of social justice not via politics, criminality or violence but by highlighting the insidious formalities of a bureaucratic system apparently designed to hinder instead of help. In the original film the hero, a middle-aged joiner whose recent heart attack has left him unable to take a job, was played by comedian/actor Dave Johns, who went on to adapt and direct an updated stage version of the script at Northern Stage in 2023. And now, following its initial sold-out run and successful tour, it’s back, this time playing in the theatre’s main space, Stage One. I had wondered whether the expansion from a smaller studio setting might distance the impact of the drama, but as the design retains its ingenious capacity to box in the action with the mundane, stackable units we barely register as parts of our lives, it looked just as canny, still featuring projected political statements to clarify the attitudes that fuelled it. David Nellist brings such an unassuming warmth to the title role that the audience’s sympathy was almost tangible, sharing in his moments of good humour and bristling along with his frustration to the extent that if he’d decided to lead us out into a protest march down Northumberland Street, I suspect we would all have followed him in a heartbeat. The drama’s Kafkaesque element of the individual not fighting the system but being negated by it might have read like an allegory except for this capacity to touch the heart and relate as a human being. Jessica Johnson played into this as Katie, the devoted mother whose desire for a better life leads to a series of dead ends, expressing both the courage and touchiness of someone who hardly dares accept the help they need, while the ensemble cast framed the leads in a series of sharp characterisations of people working under the sort of pressure that ultimately blocks any capacity to communicate or listen. Big ovation, well deserved.

Gail-Nina Anderson