Gerry & Sewell ★★ Aldwych Theatre | January 13 - 24, 2026


Gerry & Sewell presents itself as a theatrical pot o’ scouse. The traditional Tyneside dish, made from whatever meat, bones, or leftovers can be found in the cupboards, is a hearty working-class meal that reflects both Geordie ingenuity and endurance. The play clearly intends to offer a similar tribute to its roots. However, in the production, the disparate elements fail to cohere. The main storyline of the two eponymous protagonists and their shared dream of securing season tickets to their beloved football club is obscured rather than enriched by histories of Gerry’s two sisters, his abusive father, and his suicidal mother. While this material provides background about inheritance, damage, and class survival, it feels simultaneously excessive and underdeveloped. Tonally, the show is also jarring. It shifts rapidly between social realism and broad comedy, with these alternations feeling less like deliberate contrasts and more like unresolved collisions. Dance routines, rapping, and spoken-word passages punctuate moments of serious commentary without clearly extending or interrogating them. Set pieces such as the parody of Barry Manilow’s "I Write the Songs" or the Job Centre sequence in which Jack Robertson appears in a female wig, channeling Matt Lucas, seem designed for immediate comic effect rather than narrative or thematic development. This inconsistency extends to the production’s manipulation of theatrical convention. The audience is invited to laugh at the artifice of Rusty the dog being a puppet, only to be asked moments later to respond with genuine emotional distress when that same puppet is apparently drowned. Because the rules of engagement keep changing, the emotional impact never fully lands. The characters themselves remain largely two-dimensional, and while the play clearly wants us to sympathise with its protagonists, that sympathy is attenuated by their lack of complexity and by the fact that at times the line between affectionate representation and caricature feels uncomfortably thin. Ultimately, Gerry & Sewell resembles not a deliberately eclectic stew, but a collection of ingredients thrown into the same pot without sufficient care or patience. The intention to honour working-class resilience is evident, yet intention alone cannot substitute for cohesion. What emerges is a sequence of skits aimed at provoking laughter and sympathy rather than a dish in which the flavours have been allowed to slowly merge into something sustaining and whole.

Rated: ★★

Reviewed by J.C.
Photo by Von Fox Promotions

When, Where, Getting there:
Map & Location: 49 Aldwych, London WC2B 4DF, UK

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