The ballot is open, voting is under way, internal grapples are going on between heart and head. But this is not about who is going to run the country.
The choice is for miners of Grimley Colliery: do they vote in favour of the promised £23,000 and say goodbye to their jobs and much more or fight on to the bitter end in a fruitless battle to save their pit and community?
It is 1994 yet the political backdrop is all too familiar: Tories in power and the working man and his family struggling to make ends meet. The stakes are high, the mood low as the women struggle to put food on the table and the men drown their sorrows down the pub.
In fact all that is keeping the miners going is the colliery band, the shining light on a horizon devoid of hope. The future looks as black as the coal they hew, but Brassed Off is a tragic-comedy and this new co-production at Theatre by the Lake, adapted by Paul Allen, based on the classic screenplay by Mark Herman and directed by Keswick’s own Liz Stevenson, is full of gritty, northern humour too.
What sets this production – TBTL has again linked up with Octagon Theatre Bolton and Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough – apart is the live music. Yet another multi-skilled cast joins in with Floral Dance, Danny Boy, Nessun Dorma and Land of Hope and Glory, but there are other stars in this show, namely ‘real’ members of Penrith Town Band who are invited to share their talent to boost band numbers.
The story centres on Phil (Joey Hickman), a man under pressure with a prison record from the miners’ strike picket line, four kids, a despairing wife, a sick but proud father Danny (Russell Richardson) and a trombone that’s past its best. Down to his last few quid, likeable Phil takes on work as a hapless children’s entertainer, yet another role at which he fails.
Meanwhile, Gloria Mullins (Hannah Woodward) has returned to Grimley and hooks up with her teenage fling Andy (Barney Taylor). But she is hiding a secret – there at the behest of management to report back on the viability of the pit which, regardless of her naïve but honourable intentions, puts her at loggerheads with the miners.
Pals Jim (local actor Greg Patmore) and Harry (Matt Ian Kelly) and their wives Vera (Joanna Holden) and Rita (Maxine Finch) provide plenty of comic interludes with some of the best one-liners, yet the group equally embodies the pathos and sad reality of careers set for the slag heap.
The band is the fellas’ lifeline, representing escape, comradeship and dignity – but they are under pressure to save their subs.
Music transcends all their problems – as Danny says the band has survived wars, Depression and strikes since 1881, and long it after all there will still be music. Or will there?
After a disastrous showing at a contest in Saddleworth – 14 competitions and a pint at each one resulting in drunken chaos choreographed by movement director Chi-San Howard in the most hilarious scene in the show – the players decide enough is enough.
Daneka Etchells is underused in her authentic portrayal of Sandra, mother to Craig and Melody, who are played with charm and professionalism by local children, and grown-up Andrew Turner who insightfully plays eight-year-old Shane. It is through his eyes that the drama unfolds and there is worse to come as Phil attempts to take his own life in a powerful and poignant scene that prompts Danny to finally acknowledge that once they’ve lost the will to live there really is nothing left.
When he falls ill and Gloria galvanises the broken men, they come together for the finale, the National Championships at the Royal Albert Hall in London. By now we are all rooting for the band as the theatre audience volunteer itself as support entourage. We cheer and clap for the fictional band and the real cast, their triumph ending on a high note.
Brassed Off continues until July 27, theatrebythelake.com/event/brassed-off/
