“If you accept the unacceptable without being angry, there’s something wrong with you” once said the renowned director, Ken Loach.

And it’s the phrase that most comes to mind when watching the newly touring version of I, Daniel Blake, which has been adapted for the stage from the award-winning 2016 film.

Loach’s second Palme d’Or winner was written by Paul Laverty, with Daniel played by actor Dave Johns, who has now taken the reigns to adapt the social-realist tale for the theatre, coming to Birmingham Rep on the back of a sell-out launch in Newcastle.

If you’ve watched the film, which is known as one of Loach’s starkest tales, you already know you’re in for a bleak and bumpy ride, but somehow seeing it on stage shines an ever-harsher light on this story of living through crippling austerity with a political system stacked against you.  

Daniel has recently found himself out of work after because of heart problems, and desperate to get back to earning, but finding himself caught up in the frustrating system of the UK benefits system.

He meets Katie who has newly moved to Newcastle with her daughter, and the pair find themselves establishing a friendship of sorts.

The setting is as stark as the story, the same set of shelves operates as both of their flats, the job centre and the foodbank. There are echoes of 1984 here. Daniel is not a person, he is a “service user”, governed by the “decision maker”. Scenes are interspersed with a screen showing real life statements by politicians including Theresa May, Boris Johnson, and Liz Truss. David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ speech even makes an appearance.

A quote from George Osborne at the time of the film’s release reads “This is a work of fiction”. This very quip alone, set against the day to day lives of the marginalised onstage characters, serves as an important device to illustrate it is anything but.

David Nellist is terrific in the role of Daniel, who starts out optimistically but is battered down by the harsh realities of trying to live within a system not built for him. Bryony Corrigan is both hardened and vulnerable as Katie, and there are some real stand out scenes of warmth and emotion in her scenes with daughter Daisy, played by Jodie Wild.

It’s a clever production. Shocking, sad and above all anger inducing. It is particularly raw and relevant as we go through a cost-of-living crisis.

Whatever your political persuasions, it’s hard not to be moved by this startling piece of theatre, a moving story of people holding each other up in the face of adversity and the refusal to be cowed against the harsh backdrop of ‘Broken Britain’.

Four stars

Reviewed by Fiona Mccartney on Wednesday 14 June at The Rep, Birmingham, where the show runs until Saturday (24 June).