By Natasha Tripney

Things haven’t got better, they’ve got worse,” says Dave Johns, the comedian and former brickie who made his name in I, Daniel Blake, Ken Loach and Paul Laverty’s Palme D’or-winning 2016 film about a middle-aged widower who is denied benefits and deemed fit for work despite recently suffering a major heart attack.

Johns has now adapted the film for the stage, in a new production which will be directed by Mark Calvert and open at Northern Stage ahead of a national tour. I, Daniel Blake, says Johns, is a film “about ordinary people caught in a welfare system that doesn't listen to them, and that seems to be set up to thwart them. With the cost-of-living crisis and all that, it’s perfect timing.”

Since the film’s release the number of food banks has increased dramatically. The Newcastle West End Food Bank reported a 39% increase in the number of food parcels issued in the last year alone. According to a Joseph Rowntree Foundation poverty report, 1 in 5 people (22%) in the UK are now living in poverty, of working-age adults lone parents are by far the most likely of any family type to be struggling, and child poverty is even higher at 31%. The stage version will reflect the financial pressures people are under today. The cast visited the West End Food Bank at the start of rehearsals. “We spent time with some of the volunteers and met some of the people who used the food bank and heard their stories”, says Bryony Corrigan, who plays Katie, the young single mother who forms a close friendship with Daniel. “It was really eye-opening.”
"I'm a great fan of Paul Laverty. He has his finger on the pulse about politics, so for Paul to trust me with this story was a great honour," says Johns, though David Nellist will take on the role of Daniel. "I'm a bit too old to remember all those lines," he laughs. "I wanted to pass it on to another actor." Johns did not simply want to recreate the film on stage. “I didn’t want it to be a period piece,” he says.
“We have this great team," including designer Rhys Jarman, Ross Millard, from Sunderland post-punk band The Futureheads, who is writing the music, and AV design and projections by Matthew Brown for PixelLux who recently worked on Bonnie and Clyde in the West End. "It’s not going to be a kitchen-sink drama, it’s going to be quite stylised."

Taking a cue from British political campaign group Led by Donkeys, the production will use the government’s own social media output to highlight its hypocrisy. “Their tweets will be projected on a huge billboard that is part of the set.” The audience will see “what they’ve been saying about the benefits system, homelessness, and the cost-of-living crisis. And then, underneath it, we will see the lives of these people on stage, playing it truthfully.” 

"When I told Ken [Loach] about the tweets, his eyes lit up," says Johns. When the film was released, MP Damian Green, then Secretary of State, was asked his opinion of I, Daniel Blake in the House of Commons. He dismissed the film as “a work of fiction,” explains Johns. “But this is the truth of ordinary people's lives.” The play has been as thoroughly researched as Loach and Laverty’s film, says Johns. “There's nothing made up about this.” 

One of the things the stage adaptation develops is the character of Katie, who had no choice but to be re-housed in Newcastle because there is no affordable housing in London. “We’ve given Katie a bigger voice,” says Johns. Bryony Corrigan who plays Katie explains, “What Dave's done so brilliantly is to flesh out her back story a bit further. We get to learn a bit more about what's put Katie in these circumstances and what led her to end up where she is, and that has threaded within it a couple of other issues, such as domestic abuse and social housing.”

Like so many people who have been forced to move away from more affluent areas in the UK, Katie has been taken away from her family, her friends and the place that she grew up in, she says, and “just thrust into the middle of a completely new area.” Having been spotted by Loach on a visit to Newcastle, Kema Sikazwe (aka rapper Kema Kay) played Daniel’s entrepreneurial neighbour China in the original film. He has gone on to make his name as a stage performer, writing a one-man show Shine about growing up in the North East and will play the part of China again on stage. “It's an honour to be invited back to I, Daniel Blake,” he says. “To do it on stage, you get to be in the room with people who understand what's going on.”

“I really connect with my character personally, because I know a lot of people who went through similar situations as China went through, and got fed up with the system, who knew that if they were given the opportunity and a fair chance, then things might be different,” he says. “For me it's not just another acting job. It feels like we're telling a true story.”

“It feels as if the system is intentionally set up to be impenetrable,” says Johns. “It’s like they want you to give up.” And yet many of the people Daniel encounters as he tries to access his benefits are relatively sympathetic. The portrayal is certainly not “monstrously unfair” as Damian Green described it. “Many of them are victims of the system too. They're trying to put food on the table and keep paying the mortgage and they are being asked to implement a system that a lot of them probably feel is unfair,” says Johns.

In one of the film’s key scenes, Daniel, out of desperation, spray-paints a declaration on the wall of the job centre, an act of protest. “Daniel’s not done anything like that before,” explains Johns. “He’s a law-abiding man so it’s a big gesture. But when you're not being listened to, you have no choice.”
“This government is constantly, stealthily, and sometimes not so stealthily, trying to take our right to protest,” he continues. “It's literally stopping people from talking and being able to stand up for what they believe in and speak out on behalf of the oppressed.”

What do they hope people will take from the stage show? “I hope it’ll make people more aware and spark debate about who they’re going to vote for,” says Sikazwe. 
“I hope people will write to their MPs,” says Corrigan. “And if you can get yourself to a food bank to volunteer, or donate a bit more or take a couple of quid out of your weekly shop and put it towards
something extra for the food bank, the difference that makes is amazing,” she adds. “Food banks are down on their donations at the moment.”

“Our enemies are not the people coming here on boats. People need to realise that there's something fundamentally wrong with our society.” says Johns. “We've been saying this since Dickens. A society is supposed to care. That is what a society should be. We should be generous, and not just give handouts, but put right the fundamental things that are wrong.”

“I want people to get angry,” he says. “I want them to be furious.”

I, Daniel Blake comes to the Liverpool Playhouse on Tue 19 Sep to Sat 23 Sep 2023. Click here for the performance diary.