Created in collaboration with The North East Young Dads and Lads, Father Unknown is an often funny, sometimes very moving show about young fatherhood, performed with kinetic energy by Ryan Nolan.

Nolan – who was also excellent in One Off, at Live – is intensely likeable as Alfie, a teenager whose life gets thrown into chaos when his girlfriend becomes pregnant. Juggling exams, jobs and teenage fatherhood isn’t easy, compounded by the lack of rights that comes from not being named on the child’s birth certificate, which is filled in by his girlfriend’s parents as simply ‘father unknown’.

Created by writer Dr Michael Richardson, from Newcastle University and director Jonah York, who have worked with the charity and the young men for three years, it is intimately grounded in the lives – and geography – of its subjects. (Though, fair warning, if you try to buy flowers from the Boots in Trinity Square like Alfie does, you are likely to be disappointed). Alfie’s life, with all its highs and lows, is convincingly sketched in all its minute detail. While the subject matter is universal enough to appeal to a wider audience – and the show certainly deserves more than this short run – there was a definite frisson of recognition in the audience as Alfie’s courtship was sketched out in such recognisable locations. (Yes – why did they build the QE hospital at the top of such a big bloody hill?)

York keeps everything pacey – the run time is just over an hour – and Nolan’s protean performance, switching smoothly between characters (but always filtered through Alfie’s perception of them), is a genuine standout. The design team (Aileen Kelly’s set, Simon Cole’s lighting and Jayne Dent’s sound) support the action well, and the intimacy of the piece works well in Northern Stage’s smaller studio.

If I came out of the show conflicted, that is perhaps more on me than them, but I was troubled by the production’s almost complete lack of acknowledgement that abortion is a thing that exists in the world. If it was mentioned, it was so fleetingly that I missed it (and while I was slightly muzzy from the heat – I am way too Northern for this weather – I’m sure I would have noticed… Also a woman I spoke to afterwards also commented on this, so it definitely wasn’t just my takeaway…)

I do get that a show about parenthood has to be about, y’know, parenthood, and that one story shouldn’t have to do the work of every story. And also that in some circles, including the ones I grew up in, teenage pregnancies do almost always led to teenage parenthood. But given the world we currently live in, it made me uneasy to see the casual assumption that the inevitable result of a pregnancy – no matter how unexpected or inconvenient or indeed potentially devastating – is a baby. That a young, clever and ambitious girl gets pregnant and she and everyone around her simply ready themselves to deal with a child. Perhaps I am being unreasonable – the show does what it sets out to do, and it does it very well. But given its likely potential audience, I would have liked to see this important topic at least given a decent airing.

Father Unknown is on tonight at Northern Stage, although that is sold out. Do keep an eye out for future performances – this run has been so successful I can’t imagine it won’t come back.

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