Brassed Off

By Paul Allen
adapted from a screenplay by Mark Herman
presented by Lancaster Footlights

The Grand Theatre, Lancaster
10 - 14 October 2006

Playing at Lancaster’s Grand Theatre, Paul Allen’s stage version of Brassed Off is largely faithful to Mark Freeman’s original screenplay. Set in ‘Grimley’, Yorkshire, the story is of the 1984-85 closures of economically viable pits, of the strikes and redundancies, of the cynically-arranged reviews and ballots, and of the important contribution of the WAPC (Women Against Pit Closures). Interwoven is the story of the Grimley Colliery Band, run and conducted by the committed ex-miner Danny – a band whose fate is tied to that of the pit.

Unlike the film's fairy-tale treatment of the band’s ultimate success at the Albert Hall, Brassed Off does not over-simplify political issues and allegiances. Only some of the men are determined to continue the strike and resolve not to vote to accept the £23,000 redundancy payment, and only some of the women are involved in the WAPC. And, of course, there is always the possibility that many of those miners who level accusations of ‘bribery’, and call others ‘scabs’, will vote for the payment themselves anyway. After all, how did Thatcher’s Tory government survive three successive elections? As Danny says, he’s never met anyone who voted Tory but they keep bloody getting in. In the event, the vote to close the pit was 4 to 1.

This is not the only tension: loyalties are split between family time and time with the band, and money spent on food or on a ‘new’ trombone. Then there is the personal and the political – should miners ever have romantic relationships with management? And Rita of the WAPC is not blind to the irony that when husband Harry was in work, she prayed every day for him to come back safely from the pit.

There are moments of true pathos. Most memorable is when Sandra leaves home with the four children after the visit of the bailiff and her discovery of husband Phil’s £50 deposit on the ‘new’ trombone, acted out beautifully and wordlessly. Another is Danny’s implied death – from infected lungs.

There is some good acting, in particular Phil and Sandra (Dominic Ashton and Karen Winnard), and their son (and Danny’s grandson) Shane (James Carey), a nine-year-old who in the stage version directly addresses the audience. And particular credit must go to the Morecambe Band, whose trumpets and euphoniums and trombones more than do justice to ‘Concerto De Aranjuez’ (including a solo by returnee Gloria (Carol Blaylock)) and ‘Danny Boy’, in particular. Members of the audience spontaneously sang along with the concluding ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ – a Tory song appropriated by the Grimley Band, to paraphrase.

The Thursday show played to a largely full house, and the audience was clearly engaged – perhaps because of this being a Northern play playing to a Northern audience. But perhaps it was also because of the very real British political issues and grass-roots political understandings of the 1980s that this play draws on. 1984 is not all that long ago: audiences will remember it, and be aware of its repercussions.

Jane Sunderland
13/10/06

Brassed Off runs up to Saturday October 14, 7.30 p.m. Tickets are £8.50 (£7.50 concessions).

Brassed Off 1996 film website

Interview with Paul Allen

see also BBC ‘On this day’ for March 12, 1984 (the start of the miners’ strike, called by Arthur Scargill)