The Pitmen Painters

Synopsis

In 1934, a group of Ashington miners hired a professor to teach an art appreciation evening class. Rapidly abandoning theory in favour of practice, the pitmen began to paint. Within a few years the most avant-garde artists became their friends and their work was acquired by prestigious collections; but every day they worked, as before, down the mine. Examining the lives of a group of ordinary men that do extraordinary things, The Pitmen Painters is a humorous, deeply moving and timely look at art, class and politics.

Our Review:

Scott Purvis - 26 July 2011

A vivid and affecting portrait of Northern England in the 1930s, Lee Hall's The Pitmen Painters cleverly blends class, art and politics. Its amusing and informed script colours the lives of its stoic, disenfranchised characters with all of the depth and detail of a masterpiece, drawing recognisable sketches of a passed era and the unfulfilled hopes of a generation.

In a dark and grimy Ashington village hall, five working-class Newcastle men meet to better themselves through the arts. Snatched from the classrooms and forced to work in the pits in their childhood, they hire an Art Historian to teach them the cultural lessons which their upbringing and class denied them. Their talents, raw and unrestrained, allow them to experience the pleasure of creation, opening a rich debate on artistic form, the British class divide and the power of community.

Max Roberts's cast is uniformly excellent. As artist and tutor Robert Lyon, David Leonard is a model of poise a...

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