Our Friends in the North gets first stage premiere in Newcastle — SkimNews
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- Live theatre, Theatre Royal Newcastle and Eastlake Productions are co-producing the first-ever stage version of Peter Flannery's Our Friends in the North, with director Jack McNamara casting four performers from the north-east — Ryan Nolan as Nicky, Sam Neale as Mary, Jack Robertson as Tosker and Scott Turnbull as Geordie
- Peter Flannery has reworked two episodes of the 1996 BBC Two series — set in 1979 and 1984 — into a two-act play, introducing a chorus and drawing on material from other episodes for explanatory purposes
- The original TV series, broadcast in 1996, charted 30 years in the lives of four working-class Geordies against Labour politics and police corruption, and made stars of Mark Strong, Daniel Craig, Gina McKee and Christopher Eccleston
- Flannery says the police corruption strand that some viewers originally thought exaggerated is in fact worse now, citing serving officers prosecuted for rape and murder since the show first aired
- Flannery, who is approaching 75, says the Newcastle production is likely the last thing he will write, though he frames it as a 'triumph of hope over experience' around Andy Burnham's arrival as prime minister
- Our Friends in the North: The Thatcher Years runs at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle upon Tyne, from 15 to 24 October
Why it matters: The staging marks the first time the 1996 BBC drama — long a fixture on 'greatest British TV' lists — has been adapted for the stage, with Flannery himself returning to rewrite it. McNamara and Live theatre are betting the work still resonates, with Flannery arguing corruption and political chicanery have worsened since the original aired, giving the new production a contemporary sting beyond nostalgia.
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