Brassed Off

Published Monday 8 September 2008 at 13:20 by Andrew Liddle

It’s 1994 and the miners are taking their last stand against indiscriminate pit closures.

This warm, gritty slice of social history, adapted by Paul Allen from Mark Herman’s hit screenplay, poignantly charts the struggle, in the well-named Grimley, to keep the historic colliery band going.

Clara Darcy is a natural as Gloria, the girl who comes back to her northern roots bringing with her a host of memories and a flugelhorn which sounds amazing. At first she is welcomed with open arms, not least by childhood sweetheart, Andy, nicely understated by Phil Rowson, until it emerges that she is up here to do a survey on the pit’s viability.

Eric Potts is outstanding in the role immortalised by Pete Postlethwaite in the 1996 film, as Danny, the obsessive band leader determinedly keeping up tradition and appearances, despite waging his own personal battle against pneumonoconiosis.

His son, Phil (Stuart Wade) is one of several highly-developed characters whose grim valour inspire pity and admiration. He and his harried wife, Sandra (Emma Gregory), and family are still suffering the consequences of the miners’ strike a decade earlier.

Jim (Bernard Wrigley) and Harry (Phil Corbitt), the Cannon and Ball of the band, up the comedy ante, ably supported by wives Rita (Isabel Ford) and Vera (Susan Twist ), a pair of born cheerleaders turned militant.

Director Kevin Shaw keeps a tight hold of the play’s elements of betrayal and redemption and, without ever over-sentimentalising, achieves a fine balance of tenderness and pathos, qualities that are underscored by the live brass band’s mellow tones.