Muck and Brass

BRASSED OFF

Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton, Thursday 24^th August, 2017

 

It’s been forty years since Wolverhampton’s Grand Theatre produced a show of its own but now comes this new production of a time-honoured crowd-pleaser, Mark Herman’s stage adaptation of the much-loved British film.  Set in 1994, ten years after the miners’ strike and the pits are still under threat.  With closure in the air, the men are offered ‘bribes’ in the form of what might seem like generous redundancy pay-outs.  While the women of the community continue to protest and fight, the men fill their non-working hours with drinking and band practice.

Ash Matthews is Shane, our young, part-time narrator, guiding us back to those times.  Matthews, playing much younger than he is, is a likeable presence, capturing Shane’s ebullience and childish preoccupations.  Shane is an innocent trying to make sense of what the grown-ups are up to.

Ash Matthews as Shane (Photo: Graeme Braidwood)

Christopher Connel is Shane’s dad, Phil, who is really struggling to make ends meet.  It’s difficult to put bread on the table when the bailiffs have taken the table.  Connel and Miriam Grace Edwards as wife Sandra, provide most of the emotional content of the show, as their marriage comes under strain, and Phil’s mental health declines.  In a moving and desperate speech, he spits out bitter jokes as he tightens a noose around his neck.  Connel is absolutely compelling.  It’s a dark moment in what is for the most part a story leavened with a lot of down-to-earth Northern humour – most of which comes from Jim and Harry (Greg Yates and Tim Jones) and their wives Rita and Vera (Donna Heaslip and Susie Wilcox).  It’s the womenfolk who talk sense in this piece.

Shane’s grandfather and Phil’s dad, Danny, is also the leader of the colliery band, striving to keep things going and get the band through heats of various competitions.  Jeffrey Holland (from Hi-de-Hi on the telly, and countless pantomime appearances as an exemplary Dame) is a revelation in this dramatic role, balancing the dry humour with passion.  Danny may have coal dust in his lungs but he also has fire in his belly.  A dying man, he is a metaphor for the coal industry, with capitalism as the disease that will kill him.

Eddy Massarella makes a strong impression as the directionless Andy, whose interest is aroused by the return of old flame Gloria (an excellent Clara Darcy) who blows a mean flugelhorn but has a hidden agenda.  Their thwarted love story falls second, however, to scenes that show the blight on the communities by Tory ideology – and it is here that the play retains its relevance.  It is people that matter, Danny declares in an impassioned speech, not making a bob or two – despite the way the Tories carry on to this day.

Director Gareth Tudor Price handles the tonal changes as assuredly as conductor Danny steers the music.  And what music it is!  From the bouncy Floral Dance to the searing Concerto d’Aranjuez and a stirring William Tell Overture, the brass band sound is gorgeous.  The cast is augmented by the City of Wolverhampton Brass Band and it’s a real treat for the ears.

I hope this show heralds a new era of in-house productions for the Grand.  This foul-mouthed but heart-warming story is a superb way to start.

Jeffrey Holland as Danny (Photo: Graeme Braidwood)

 

 

Golden Oldies

FOREVER YOUNG

Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, Wednesday 11^th February, 2015

 

Set in the common room of a retirement home, this musical comedy adapted from the German original, has a cast of elderly characters, portrayed by much younger actors – a good thing: they move and act like old people but their singing voices retain the power of their comparative youth.

There is next to nothing in the way of plot and character development, and very little dialogue, come to think of it. Instead we spend a couple of hours in their company. There are periods of quiet, comic action and there are songs and plenty of them. In an eclectic song list that ranges from Joan Jett to Joan Baez, some lyrics take on additional significance. “The time to hesitate is through,” they sing during The Doors’ Light My Fire. Indeed.

The residents are patronised and coerced by Sister George (Georgina White) and here lies most of the show’s inherent conflict. On the whole though, they seem to rub along quite nicely – at one point a slow-moving (not slow-motion) slapstick spat breaks out, providing some measured, perhaps a little too slow, clowning.

Dale Superville is in fine fettle, with some physical shtick and a strong singing voice. His falsetto version of R E S P E C T goes down well, but his sweet duet of I Got You Babe with his sweetheart (Clara Darcy) is a highlight. Darcy goes on to give a plaintive rendition of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit which becomes embittered and stirring when the others join in. In fact, the ensemble singing is delightful, harmonised to perfection. Stefan Bednarczyk (who co-adapted the piece with director Giles Croft) proves himself a versatile pianist, covering a vast range of musical styles. The excellent Rebecca Little hurls invective to comic effect and, when her prosthetic leg comes off, launches into a wistful Barbie Girl.  The nostalgia factor is strong in this one. When the elderly are asked to sing songs of the old days, and they come out with 90s pop hits, you know you’re getting on.

It’s quite bonkers when you think about it but the spectre of mortality is waiting in the wings. Live life, the oldies urge us, and don’t let the bastards grind you down. This gets a cheer from the audience, comprised mainly of white-haired people (refreshing to be among the youngest present!), but for all its feel-good fun, it’s not as funny as it thinks it is. Perhaps something was lost in translation and the European humour doesn’t travel. The first half is too long and some business is drawn out too far. We don’t get to hear John Elkington’s Imagine after three or four false starts – a pity; he is in great voice (when he’s not falling off the stage or breaking wind).

It’s a pleasant couple of hours but it’s a packet of biscuits rather than a meal.

Tim Frater and John Elkington (Photo: Robert Day)

Swing to the Right

PROPAGANDA SWING

Belgrade Theatre, Coventry Wednesday 17^th September, 2014

Berlin, 1939 and American journalist Bill Constant (Richard Conlon) finds his radio broadcasts heavily vetted by nasty Nazi Heinrich Hinkel (Paul Lincoln) and the woman he loves is married to the studio’s band leader. It’s familiar territory with Constant a kind of Isherwood figure. He is our narrator and witness to the tightening stranglehold the Nazis have on their own country as well as the atrocities they perpetrate across Europe.

Jazz music is banned – until someone comes up with the idea to broadcast it to the UK, as a way of undermining British morale – the kind of bonkers idea lunatics on the far right believe will work.

And so the show is full of wonderful music, played live by an excellent band supplemented by cast members who also play instruments. Particularly impressive is Clara Darcy’s Anita who can play a mean trumpet. The music is in stark contrast to the realities of war and life in a crackpot regime, but because we as the audience know the music is being used as a weapon, we know we’re not supposed to enjoy it – especially when Charly Schwedler (Jonny Bower) a handsome young Nazi who changes the lyrics for added racism and anti-semitism.

During the second act, there is no applause. We don’t want to sound like we support the Nazis.

It’s much darker in the second act too. The strong ensemble, directed by Hamish Glen, play some tense and powerful moments, and there is a sense of the evil permeating their society as well as the effect it has on their personal lives, thanks to an intelligent script by Peter Arnott.

The splendid cast includes: Miranda Wilford as Lala the singer in the love triangle with Constant and Lutz Templin (Tomm Coles); Chris Andrew Mellon is dispossessed club owner and comedian Otto Stenzl, who has an extremely uncomfortable set, cracking Jew jokes and baiting the Gestapo; Paul Lincoln is superbly insidious as smarmy tinpot dictator Hinkel; The traitor Lord Haw Haw appears (Callum Coates) to spread his own brand of poison.  Coates is chilling and vile in his portrayal.

The music continues, but it is tainted for us now. Beautifully played, we cannot let it seduce us into applauding evil.

And so it’s a night of contrasts. We enjoy the performers and love the music but the story the show documents is sickening. It’s a salutary reminder why right wing lunacy should never be in power and, sadly, there are still right wing lunatics among us.

Top Brass

BRASSED OFF

Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton, Tuesday 8th April, 2014

 

Writer Paul Allen has adapted Mark Herman’s screenplay to bring the much-loved British film to the stage,in this appealing, amusing and affecting production.  Allen introduces the device of a narrator, the eight-year-old Shane (played by a young-looking Luke Adamson) through whose eyes we see the lives of a fictional Yorkshire mining community in the 1990s.  Shane’s child’s-eye view simplifies the situation, focussing on the effects of a proposed and then inevitable pit closure on the domestic lives of the miners and their families.

As Shane’s mum Sandra, Rebecca Clay carries a lot of the emotional heat of the play, as she struggles to put food on the table.  The play only touches on the desperation, hardship and starvation of the people who were in this predicament.  The mining communities may have gone but child poverty is still very much with us under our present Tory (in all but name) government.  The script’s jibes at the Tories go down well but such is the overall nostalgic feel of the production, they may as well be joking about Hitler or Julius Caesar.

The miners play in a brass band, led by Danny (John McArdle off of Brookside) who stands for tradition and principle. Music is everything, he says, right up until a death bed conversion to the maxim that people are everything, and nothing matters if people don’t. McArdle is suitably gruff and hard-faced throughout.  Danny’s death coincides with the mine’s closure and therefore the disbanding of the band.  It’s the end of an era and men of principle like Danny (and the late Tony Benn) are all but extinct.

Andrew Dunn provides comedy and pathos as Phil, whose broken trombone is the least of his problems; James Robinson is the handsome Romeo whose budding relationship with Gloria (Clara Darcy) is threatened when it emerges she has been working for the evil management, boo hiss.  There is earthiness and coarse humour to the script- the cast as a whole hit the right note.

The music itself is a real treat.  The stirring rendition of Rodrigo’s Concierto d’Aranjuez is a showstopper, and there is a poignant version of Danny Boy that tugs the heartstrings.  The tour provides opportunities for local brass bands to perform alongside the actors.

Director Damian Cruden keeps the action fluid on Dawn Allsop’s multiple-location set, which keeps the pit head at the centre of it all. The setting (particularly with a grown man playing an eight-year old) reminds me of Blood Brothers, and there are echoes of The Pitman Painters in the story.  Unlike the latter, Brassed Off looks very much to the past.  I would prefer a bit more agit-prop with my pit-prop.  The characters may lose their fight but at least they stand up and fight.

It’s a cosy piece of entertainment with emotional if not political resonance.  The humour, the likeable cast and the wonderful music are what make this show worth seeing.