Adapted by Dave Johns, from Ken Loachs’ Film

Directed by Mark Calvert

Tickets: £20.00 (Con. available)

£350 million a week for the NHS. There were no parties in Downing St. It’s no worse than the flu. Forty new hospitals. No red tape: an oven-ready deal. Fifty rebuilt schools.

These things are fictional.

I, Daniel Blake’s intentions and the stories associated with them, are very real.

Playwright Dave Johns, who played Daniel on screen in Loach’s award-winning 2016 film, may not benefit from the on-site location use but does punctuate their stage adaptation with cinematic projections featuring mock-up ‘tweets’ from various government ministers and their derisive actions on austerity, food banks, the NHS, and child poverty. An immediate sense of vexation is likely to rise within the audience from the moment we hear recordings of then Work and Pensions Minister Damien Green’s comments on the film’s validity – despite only ever watching the trailer.

After having a major heart attack, Daniel is deemed unable to work from his doctor – indeed, he is all but forbidden from doing so. However, after being labelled as capable of work following a Q&A session from the Department of Work and Pensions, Daniel struggles with the impersonal new world of computers, digital appointment making, and job interviews which go beyond a friendly chat and handshake. Here, David Nellist takes up the principal role for the new touring production and balances a finesse of humourous spirit and pathos, turning in a heartbreaking performance that defies any remark on the fictitious nature of the story.

There’s plenty of wind-up in the hefty punch which I, Daniel Blake propels into the audience – even for those familiar with the film. A sharp first act, which is a clear and articulate indictment of the ‘broken Britain’ system of tearing away agency and its bizarrely brutal failure to aid those out of poverty. But underneath the blood-boiling frustrations is a genuine and earnest celebration of the continued kinship of people who look out for one another in a political climate so determined to pit one another’s aggressions anywhere but into the state which has long abandoned its duty of care.

It’s all sparked off when Daniel meets Kate (Bryony Corrigan), a single mum who is offered a council flat in Newcastle (despite living in London) with her daughter Daisy (Jodie Wild). Together the trio form a co-operative relationship which gets them through strenuous times after Kate is sanctioned of her benefits for being late to a meeting. The three have an uplifting presence when sharing the stage, even in moments of bleak distress, there is still laughter and a sense of life in their chemistry, the kinship of Johns and Wild’s wise-if-youthful Daisy beautiful to watch.

As central as John’s performance as Daniel is, Corrigan’s persistent painted-on smile as Kate is profoundly distressing to watch in how authentic they capture the humanity and the mother beneath the suffering. A performance which gradually breaks into near-hysteria as the mother pushes for her daughter’s survival, eventually succumbing to the limited options available to fend off starvation – food banks and sex work: the first act culminating in one of British cinema, and now stages most harrowing moments – one which should haunt any who question the tribulations and extremes those within the UK have pushed themselves, as Ross Millard’s composition gives way, and allows the silence which lingers with the audience to speak louder than any political jargon.

A true horror lies in the accuracy, thanks to Calvert’s precise direction, of Micky Cochrane and Janine Leigh’s supporting cast of Jobcentre staff, employers, and background roles which capture an all too familiar representation – not of outright villainy, but of the bureaucracy and scapegoating conducted by government officials, and the exasperated civil service and council workers. It captures the outdated notions of ‘customer’ and ‘client’ focus these systems manipulate themselves into, seeing the numbers and system before the individual.

Together with Kema Sikazwe’s role as Daniel’s neighbour China, the ensemble is largely responsible for shifting Rhys Jarman’s set, which throughout the show morphs from flats into jobcentres, to garden centres and foodbanks – gradually having elements of it re-possessed or sold-off, limiting distractions and pushing the audiences focus right onto the performances. By the end, there’s only a table and chairs left – just enough for Johns to deliver the production’s other key scene.

But it is Cochrane who delivers the powerful, if on the nose, moment of the writing on the walls as Nellist sprays on the infamous words outside the jobcentre: being ignored by the state. Nellist’s provoking and stripped-to-the-bone human performance raises audiences to their feet – both in strong appreciation for a solid production which lays bare the everyday struggles, but also in a recgonition of the action required. Still raw, even more pertinent – John’s adaptation continues to show how far the welfare state has changed: never intended to ‘just’ help people survive – it’s to help them live. It demonstrates the power of people as cleanly as the cruelty of the state, and how even a cup of tea on a bad day can change lives.