THIS IS REALITY...

As the eponymous hero in Ken Loach’s multiaward-winning film, I, Daniel Blake, comedian, actor & writer Dave Johns won the hearts of people across the world. So when he was asked to adapt the story for a stage show, he jumped at the chance.

The film’s story follows Dan, a fiftysomething Geordie, who has worked his whole adult life as a carpenter. After suffering a heart attack so serious that his doctors tell him to give up work, he turns to the state for support. But his benefits claim becomes a Kafkaesque nightmare in which he receives anything but help.

Along the way he befriends Katie, a young mother from London, who has been offered social housing in Newcastle. Like Dan, she also finds the welfare state to be anything but benevolent.

Dave, whose previous stage adaptations include The Shawshank Redemption, was keen to bring these characters to the theatre.

“What interested me was taking Paul Laverty’s lovely script from the film and trying to adapt it for the stage,” he says. “That was the challenge and the excitement. I didn’t want to just put the film on stage.

“When I made the film in Newcastle, working with Ken Loach, none of us realised what an impact it would have. When the film was released in 2016, it caught the imagination because the time was right and it was a very human story.

“I wanted the stage show to have the same emotional power as the film but bring it up to date, so that it wasn’t a history piece. So I started doing some research about what was different - and nothing was different! With the cost-of-living rise, foodbanks, austerity, it’s affecting even more people now. There are so many people just trying to make ends meet.”

The film and the stage show aim to go beyond the statistics to the real lives of people down on their luck.

“When the film came out, the narrative from Government was that anyone who was on social security or was claiming benefits was not bothering to work and were scroungers. And the film showed how these things happen to ordinary people. What shocked people was that it could be your father, your daughter, your sister, your mother. Dan wasn’t a shirking scrounger, he was just an ordinary bloke, and the system wasn’t set up to help him or to help Katie.

“The rhetoric was that if you’re on benefits, you’re not trying and you’re not contributing to society - but society doesn’t take into account how you get into that situation. The film showed this uncaring face of the state; the way it was set up was that they were making it as hard as possible for you to navigate the benefits system.”

Dave has made some changes to the tale for the stage show, which opens in Newcastle this month and comes to Birmingham Rep’s Studio space in mid-June.

“It’s an ensemble piece and the story is told by six actors. It’s basically Dan’s story as you think of it in the film, but I’ve written up Katie and the kids’ part in the play. We get a much more rounded idea of where Katie comes from and why she’s been sent from London up to Newcastle.

“I think audiences will get a more visceral emotional hit from the play than the film because you’re right there in the room with the actors and the action. It’s living and breathing, but there is humour as well. Both Dan and Katie have a good sense of humour, so there are moments of light relief. When you are faced with adversity, the one thing that keeps us all sane is a sense of humour.

“You have to have those moments of light relief because the harsh reality of how bleak their lives are would be too much to bear. So you will laugh and you’ll cry - that is what I hope is good theatre.”

But when Dave is so synonymous with the part of Daniel Blake, didn’t he want to reprise the role in theatres?

“The funny answer would be that I won lots and lots of awards for Daniel Blake, and I don’t want them to take them off me if I make a mess on stage!

“But actually, I think you do a piece of work and you’re proud of it, and I will always be proud of Daniel Blake. I have people who come up to me who recognise me and say how much that film meant to them and how much it moved them. But since then, I’ve gone on and done other films and projects, so I wasn’t tempted to recreate the role of Daniel Blake on stage.

“And we have a fabulous cast. When we put the call out for six actors, we had more than 700 submissions. The cast we have are very talented, and it’s going to be a different take on it.”

Taking the role of Dan is David Nellist, who played Mike Stamford in BBC’s Sherlock. Katie is played by Bryony Corrigan, who is best known as Vanessa in Mischief Theatre’s BBC series The Goes Wrong Show. The production also has a new score composed by Ross Millard of The Futureheads.

Produced by Northern Stage, Birmingham Rep, ETT, Oldham Coliseum and Tiny Dragon Productions, directed by Mark Calvert and designed by Rhys Jarman, the stage show has some new theatrical elements.

“We have been very influenced by Led By Donkeys, who take Government tweets and project them onto the Houses of Parliament and posters,” says Dave. “We’re working with a company who will be doing projections. So there will be a narrative, a story in tweets, of what the Government policies have been, and then, on stage, there will be Dan and Katie’s lives, their experience of it. So you can judge what the Government is saying in tweets and what is happening in reality.

“I hope audiences will feel a connection with the people who are going through these problems, and that they will be angry when they go out after seeing the show. Theatre has a power to do this, to give people a human bond with what is happening on stage. The skill of good theatre is that you emotionally grab people, you entertain them, and if you impart some knowledge to them, then you go out changing their ideas of the world - and that’s the perfect thing.”

Classical music from across the region...

Joanna MacGregor

St Laurence’s Church, Ludlow, South Shropshire, Sun 28 May

Joanna MacGregor takes her audience on a global excursion of piano repertoire with her latest Ludlow concert, which draws to a close the town’s piano festival.

The programme sees the talented pianist shifting from the sublime elegance of Bach’s tuneful French Suite No5, through the jazz melodies of Chick Corea and Nina Simone, to the sounds of Piazzolla’s toetapping tangos.

Residing at the Corporation’s Manchester home of Media City in Salford Quays, the BBC Philharmonic are no strangers to Stoke-on-Trent, regularly presenting Victoria Hall concert-goers with works from their impressive repertoire. This latest presentation sees conductor Michael Seal

London Concertante: A Night At The Opera

Lichfield Cathedral, Sun 7 May

While it’s a given that they take the business of musicmaking extremely seriously, there’s certainly nothing stuffy about the London Concertante.

Indeed, 50 percent of people who attend a performance by this 32-year-old chamber orchestra are first-time classical music concert-goers - a statistic which speaks volumes for the ensemble’s commitment to remaining at all times light-of-touch and refreshingly accessible.

The Concertante here present a candlelit evening of opera arias and overtures, including works by Puccini, Verdi, Rossini and Mozart.

(pictured) being joined by solo violinist Simone Lamsma for a programme that features, among other works, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, Elgar’s Nursery Suite, Tippett’s Suite Of The Birthday Of Prince Charles and Elgar’s Pomp And Circumstance March No4.

Estonian National Symphony Orchestra

Symphony Hall, Birmingham, Tues 16 May Making a first-ever stop-off in Birmingham, the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra open proceedings with a performance of one of their countryman Arvo Pärt’s best-known works, Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten.

They then perform Dvorák’s Seventh Symphony.

The evening’s programme is completed with a performance by Barry Douglas of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No3. The Gold Medal winner at the 1986 Tchaikovsky Piano Competition, Barry last contributed to a Birmingham classical season 14 years ago. He is here stepping in for Freddy Kempf, who has had to pull out of the concert for personal reasons.

Sir Willard White and Brodsky Quartet

Birmingham Town Hall, Sun 14 May

Sir Willard White and Brodsky Quartettwo great names in classical music - here join forces to present a homage to the musical relationship and personal friendship between Frank Sinatra and the Hollywood String Quartet.

The concert programme features, among other works, pieces from the Great American Songbook, excerpts from Porgy And Bess, traditional folk songs from both the US and the UK, Barber’s evocative Dover Beach, and a selection of Sinatra numbers from the album he cut with the Hollywood String Quartet in 1957: Close To You.