BRASSED OFF. To 1 October.

Oldham

BRASSED OFF
by Paul Allen based on the screenplay by Mark Herman

Coliseum Theatre To 1 October 2005
Tue-Thu; Sat 7.30pm Fri 8pm Mat 1 October 2.30pm
Runs 2hr 35min One interval

TICKETS: 0161 624 2829
www.coliseum.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 24 September

It's Grimley up North, where the air's thick with cliches.At least it's not another Ealing comedy. Though in its original film form Brassed Off with its salty miner-folk slowly knuckling under to the onward march of despoiling capitalism, might be a dystopic version of post-war Ealing England. In fictional South Yorkshire coal-town Grimley, miners who fought through the great strike a decade before find the bosses buying them off with redundancy payouts. There's precious little, apart from headline statements, to explain the way the miners' vote on this goes.

This is a bad time to be a working-class hero, with a crumbling industry, profitable pits being closed anyway, and bandsman Phil torn between feeding the kids and replacing a trombone that falls apart every time he plays. Only the band plays, tenuously, on as a reminder of tradition.

Deprived of cinematic editing, Paul Allen's efficient stage adaptation has no real chance. Here are nostalgic moments for the days when anysighting of workers' lives onstage was a sign of theatrical virility. Nowadays, brief images of women against pit closures, or the sight of obsessed bandmaster Danny coughing up his coaldust-lined lungs are less dramatic shorthand than short measure. Mother trailing children as she leaves home is a trauma too far back in time.

If you want a modern political story, there is one. These are the days of the minimum-wage, call-centre, customer-relations, shopping-mall sell-out. But such current realities aren't sugared with familiarity, and lack the accompanying blare of brass-bands.

What's here is an old northern-style working-class feelgood play with music, which has been doing well on a round of northern productions. In North Wales, Clwyd Theatr Cymru brought their production back for a second run; at the Coliseum it's the highest-selling show they can remember. And it's done here with a hearty mix of earnest feeling, debunking humour and expert brass playing.

But as the baton's handed on to young Shane (an expressive Robert Mallard at the performance I saw) and Grimley-born graduate surveyor Gloria joins the band while discovering her bosses are bastards, this northern nostalgia (likely be arouse derisory, told-you-so laughter across southern England) seems just cosily complacent.

Danny: Dicken Ashworth
Jim: Ian Blower
Harry: Phil Corbitt
Sandra: Marie Critchley
Phil: Steve Huison
Andy: Ian Kershaw
Gloria: Helen Power
Rita: Meriel Schofield
Vera: Susan Twist
Shane: Robert Mallard/Michael Hitchens
Melody: Nancy Salt/Paige Garth
Craig: Louie Ferreira/Dean Siddlow
Bands: Boarshurst Silver Band, Delph Band, Diggle Band, Dobcross Silver Band

Director: Kevin Shaw
Designer: Richard Foxton
Lighting: Phil Davies
Sound: Dan Ogden
Music Advisor: Howard Gay

2005-09-26 10:29:44