Quietest Place in Gateshead
The Quietest Place in Gateshead is a powerful, deeply human new play written by local playwright Tommy Scott. It follows Danny - a thirty-something, queer man navigating addiction, grief, and the quiet aftermath of losing his mam - as he tries to rebuild his life with the help of an unlikely group of men in a forgotten community room in Gateshead.
This isn’t just a story. It’s a mirror for so many who have lived with silence, shame, and loss. It’s also a conversation starter, offering a raw and honest look at mental health, recovery, and male vulnerability - told through working-class, North East voices that are often overlooked on stage.
Why This Project Matters
The play’s themes resonate widely across our region:
Mental Health: The North East has some of the highest suicide rates among men in the UK. This play opens dialogue around depression, trauma, and healing.
Addiction Recovery: It highlights real experiences of relapse, support, and the struggle for sobriety - without shame or sensationalism.
Representation: Queer, working-class, and regional voices are still massively underrepresented in British theatre. This show puts them front and centre.
Community & Connection: The core of the story is about showing up for one another, even when you have nothing left to give. That’s the kind of spirit we want to build off-stage too.
Where We Are Now
Script complete
Actors cast
Rehearsal planning underway
Producer on board
But now, we need the final piece — a venue and funding to bring it all together.
Why We Need Your Support
Producing new theatre independently is challenging - especially when you’re trying to create work that’s artistically daring and emotionally meaningful. The costs we are currently seeking help with include:
Venue hire for a preview performance
Rehearsal room space
Set design & tech equipment
Promotion and publicity
Travel expenses for the actors
We believe in paying our cast and crew wherever possible. While this remains a passion-led, unfunded project for now, we are aiming to use the preview as a platform for funding applications and a future North East tour.
Join Us
Your support helps us stage an urgent, relevant piece of work that has the power to genuinely change lives. It helps us give paid opportunities to emerging actors and creatives. It helps us tell stories that matter.
If you/your business or any one you know would like to be part of something real, something local, and something bold - we’d love to have you on board.
Even a Coffee Can Help
If formal sponsorship isn’t something you can commit to right now, even small gestures go a long way. We’ve launched a Buy Me a Coffee page for anyone who wants to contribute in a simple and accessible way.
A word from the writer
Quietest Place in Gateshead wasn’t born from a single moment - it came from years of watching people I love suffer in silence. It came from personal experience, from memories, from loss, and from a deep need to understand the kind of pain that doesn’t always get spoken about out loud.
I started writing this play because I couldn’t find the stories I wanted to see on stage. I couldn’t see working-class men from the North East talking about what it feels like to be broken - to be lonely, grieving, addicted, queer, and unsure of how to exist in a world that doesn’t give you the tools to cope.
Addiction isn’t just about substances. It’s about trying to survive when nothing inside you feels liveable. It’s about numbing what hurts so badly that feeling anything at all becomes terrifying. And mental health - especially for men like the ones in this story - often goes unchecked, unnoticed, or hidden behind a joke and a shrug. Vulnerability isn’t always an option. Pride, fear, shame - they all get in the way.
I’ve seen how men, especially in places like Gateshead, struggle to ask for help. They’re taught to be tough, to keep going, to bottle things up. But what happens when the bottle overflows? When the grief you carry for your mam, your dad, your old life, or your younger self becomes too heavy to hold?
That’s what this play is about.
