Preview: I, DANIEL BLAKE at Newcastle Northern Stage

I, DANIEL BLAKE

Newcastle Northern Stage, 

Friday 20 March – Thursday 2 April 2026

Adapted by Dave Johns  

Produced by Northern Stage in association with Leeds Playhouse

From the Palme d'Or and BAFTA award-winning film directed by Ken Loach, written by Paul Laverty

First produced to great acclaim in 2023, I, Daniel Blake returns to Northern Stage — the theatre where it was born — before embarking on a new UK tour. Dave Johns, the actor, comedian and original Daniel Blake, adapted Ken Loach's devastating Palme d'Or-winning film for the stage, and the result remains one of the most urgent pieces of political theatre to emerge from the North East in years.

The story is a simple but devastating one. Daniel Blake is a 59-year-old Newcastle joiner who, following a heart attack, is deemed unfit for work by his doctor — yet rejected for Employment and Support Allowance by a government assessor. Caught between a system that won't support him and a jobs market he can't safely re-enter, Daniel is forced to navigate an online bureaucracy designed, it seems, to defeat him. Along the way he befriends Katie, a young single mother with two children who has been relocated from London to Newcastle, equally bruised by the same indifferent machinery. Their friendship, and their shared defiance, is the beating heart of the play.

Director Mark Calvert and lead actor David Nellist — winner of Best Performing Artist at the 2023 North East Culture Awards — both return to the production, with Jessica Johnson joining as Katie. Together they ask the question at the heart of the piece: has anything really changed?

Calvert is a working class theatre-maker from the North East, and his connection to this material is deeply personal. During the original run he visited Newcastle food banks regularly, witnessing first-hand the scale of need in the city. That experience shaped a production which never tips into sentimentality, instead trusting its audience — many of whom will recognise the world on stage — to draw their own conclusions. "This production stands as a testament to the need for realignment," he has said, "a call to keep telling these stories until our country truly supports its most vulnerable."

David Nellist is a Newcastle native, known to television audiences from Sherlock and Stonehouse, while his stage work spans West End productions including Billy Elliott, War Horse, and the Olivier Award-nominated Animal Farm. His return to the role of Daniel is a homecoming in every sense — he grew up in Wallsend and his award-winning portrayal has been described as one of the most committed performances seen on a North East stage in recent memory.

Jessica Johnson takes on the role of Katie and brings formidable credentials to the part. A Journal Culture Award winner, she is perhaps best known locally for the multi-award-winning Key Change with Open Clasp Theatre and the 40th Anniversary National Tour of Educating Rita. Her television credits include Vera, Casualty and Coronation Street. She is an instinctive, deeply naturalistic actor, and the scenes between her and Nellist in the original production were among the most emotionally charged of any show in the region that year.

Completing the ensemble are four actors who all appeared in the original run: Micky Cochrane — Performing Artist of the Year at the NE Culture Awards 2025, and a cornerstone of North East theatre for decades — alongside Janine Leigh, Kema Sikazwe, and Jodie Wild. Their collective experience and familiarity with the material gives this revival a lived-in assurance that a fresh cast could not replicate.

The creative team is equally strong. Designer Rhys Jarman, Lighting Designer Simisola Majekodunmi and Movement Director Martin Hylton return alongside Calvert to recreate a production that won Excellence in Touring at the 2023 UK Theatre Awards. At the same year's North East Culture Awards, Dave Johns took home Best Writer and Nellist Best Performing Artist — a rare double that reflected the depth of quality on and off the stage.

The statistics behind the story are hard to ignore. UK food banks distributed 2.9 million emergency food parcels in 2024–25 — a 51% rise in five years. In October 2024, around 3.2 million of the poorest households cut back on food or went hungry. I, Daniel Blake does not lecture its audience about these numbers. It simply shows you one man, one woman, two children — and what happens when the state turns its back.

Tickets:

Running: 20 March – 2 April 2026 

Box Office: 0191 230 5151

Online: www.northernstage.co.uk

Venue: Northern Stage, Barras Bridge, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RH