John Godber's latest play tackles ferry friction and high jinks in the Dutch capital, as Viv Hardwick finds out.

THE North-East coast is all-important to playwright John Godber. Most of his first plays were written on holidays in the Whitley Bay and Seaburn areas and his current touring comedy, Going Dutch, features a couple from the region who make the mistake of touring Amsterdam.

The artistic director of Hull Truck Company explains it was the death of his grandparents which began his love affair with the North-East.

West Yorkshire-born Godber says: "Most of my stuff I wrote while staying on the North-East coast at Seaburn and Whitley Bay, so I know that part of the world very well. It goes back to the summer when my grandparents died and my parents couldn't face going to Blackpool any more because we'd been there every year, so they changed to the east coast. All through my years at university we went to the Feathers Caravan site up by St Mary's Island by the lighthouse. I wrote a number of plays on the island. There's also a hotel on the seafront at Seaburn called The Marriot where I've written three plays."

Godber is likely to be visiting Durham City's Gala Theatre when Going Dutch tours next week after discovering in our conversation that his old friend Simon Stallworthy is the new manager. The two worked together on Hull Truck productions.

Godber says: "Simon came into Hull Truck for two or three years and I've always found him very approachable and likeable and a positive spirit. He left Hull to go to Bolton Theatre and I thought he was still script editor on Coronation Street.

"I've never actually been to the Gala, maybe I should come to the theatre for a look because if Simon's there he and I can talk about doing things together. I'll give him a ring."

Godber and Stallworthy have similar ideas about community projects. Godber says: "Durham ought to have a home-grown theatre company putting on plays for the good burghers and surrounding district because Newcastle's big enough to accommodate itself."

Audiences at Durham can judge for themselves the advantages of having someone like Godber around for Going Dutch. The comedy is about a couple who decide to celebrate a 50th birthday with a visit to Holland by a Hull ferry. Godber did thorough research on Amsterdam on an "I go to the edge, but don't jump" basis and based the story on his fascination with class where two sides of the social divide can be caught up on a trip abroad.

"You can see no finer sight than to mix two sides of society on a North Sea ferry for 14 hours and stand back and watch the sparks fly. In a way it's a metaphor for 'don't get off the boat' because it's a big, cruel, horrible world out there," says Godber, who reckons his tall stature helps him observe from a distance some of mankind's more amusing frailties.

"I seem to be always cursed with the disease of being in the right place at the wrong time," he laughs.

He admits that casting stage musical star Gemma Craven was a gamble, particularly because she agreed to take on the project before he'd created the dialogue.

"She's fantastic. It's a wonderful, virtuoso comic performance. The job for me was to write something that she could do and show off her skills and, make no mistake about it, she's a great comic actress," says Godber, who has Craven getting drunk and being dragged around the legendary red light district by a former porn star.

TV writing is still proving challenging for the writer, who has also dabbled with sitcoms and movies with varying success. He's just completed a drama called Odd Squad - featuring Rasmus Hardiker from the BBC's Rotters' Club and Tom Morrison from the BBC's Blackpool - about teenagers in Hull for BBC Education, which may be shown on BBC2.

"My wife and I were approached to write something about children and you get to the point where you realise they are an undernourished audience and fed a lot of garbage," he says.

His next stage comedy is to be called Wrestling Mad and harks back to the days when Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy were the kings of entertainment on TV.

"It's a decision we took nine months ago and suddenly Celebrity Wrestling is all over the telly, but that is utter boll*cks. I'm looking at the real big men throwing each other around and I've been meeting with the current British wrestlers," says Godber, who promises there will be a reference to wrestler Jackie Pallo's pants in the production.

The idea came from memories of grannies shouting at TV sets in the 1970s and the days when the unmasking of Kendo Nagasaki - a mystery man who prowled the ring with a samurai sword - gripped the nation.

Godber laughs: "There is apparently a man in Hull who claims to be Kendo Nagasaki, so I'm going to meet him to see if I can unmask him. But it could have been anyone in that mask, even Derek Nimmo."

* Double Dutch, Gala Theatre, Durham, Monday-Saturday. Box Office: 0191-332 4041.

Published: 07/05/2005