After years of post-industrial decline, Newcastle-Gateshead (as the conurbation now brands itself) has a glossy sheen that would have seemed unimaginable a decade ago. The airy-fairy softness, making it a cultural capital, could not be further from the heavy industry on which the north-east was built.

As one of the characters in the play The Pitmen Painters – by Lee Hall, the Billy Elliot screenwriter who was brought up in the area – puts it: “What’s wrong with us wanting to appreciate art, like?”