Brassed Off review — coal and cornets move Yorkshire audience to tears

It’s odd that this most Yorkshire of stories has never been staged at Leeds Playhouse. Amy Leach remedies that with grit and humanity in a production of Paul Allen’s play, adapted from Mark Herman’s 1996 film. The Quarry theatre is an enormous, awkward space that demands epic storytelling; with a name that suggests it has been dug from the earth, it feels made for a colliery drama.

The opening tableaux are striking. Katie Scott’s design centres on a multilevel steel staircase leading to the enormous wheels of the mine, while choreography shows men hewing coal in a pose that evokes Iwo Jima. What follows is a fight for jobs, dignity, pride and, in some cases, lives, and the show adds political speeches and images of recent prime ministers from Boris Johnson to Rishi Sunak to suggest the north’s struggles endure.

The play follows Grimley Colliery and its brass band; when the mine faces closure and the men must choose whether to strike, the question becomes whether the band will keep playing.

United Kingdom, Leeds, Yorkshire

brassed off, leeds playhouse, amy leach, paul allen, mark herman, quarry theatre, grimley colliery, brass band, coal mining, yorkshire