Brassed Off at Leeds Playhouse – review

It’s difficult to transfer a film that conveys such a great sense of community as Brassed Off to the stage, especially when it’s as exact a transfer as Paul Allen’s of Mark Herman’s original screenplay. However, despite the Playhouse’s version showing up some of the conventionality of the plot, the evening is a triumph for the combined Horbury Victoria Brass Band and the Wakefield Metropolitan Brass Band – and for the clever way the bands are integrated into the action.

The pithead set (by Katie Scott) is most effective, ladders galore leading to three different levels, scruffy buildings with closed signs at stage level, and – unfurled when the band is playing – a superb banner for Grimley pit. The opening contains a cornet solo on “Jerusalem” and a certain amount of over-dramatic racing round the set, but, after we see assorted miners on their way to band practice (Jim and Harry determined to leave the band, but afraid to tell Danny the conductor, Danny’s son Phil nursing a broken trombone), there they are ripping into a glorious version of the “Floral Dance”. Enter Gloria, and we’re away, with her excellent flugel solo on “Concierto de Aranjuez”.

Amy Leach directs with plenty of pace as lockers, tables, chairs and beds are whizzed on and off, and brings well-defined performances from all the cast, even if occasionally at the risk of caricature. The story is simple. The Coal Board wants to close Grimley pit, Danny desperately wants to win the National Brass Band competition. Gloria is sent by management to investigate the profitability of the pit. She is a Grimley girl, renews her childhood romance with Andy, is very much on the miners’ side, but is treated as an outsider once the truth is known – she’s management!

By chance, Grimley’s victory in the semi-final comes at the same time as the 4-to-1 ballot in favour of accepting the offer of £23,000 redundancy pay. After Danny’s collapse and hospitalisation, there is sentimentality amid the bleakness, more than redeemed by such musical gems as “Danny Boy” (played as a serenade to their sick leader) and a stunning finale to the “William Tell” overture at the band finals.

The romance of Andy (Frazer Hadfield) and Gloria (Maddie Hansen) seems less foregrounded on stage than on film, but he manages a telling portrayal, though she seems oddly shy except for one outburst at the bosses. Both are among the actor-musicians who play with the band – in her case, to telling effect. David Birrell is the forthright Danny who carries the play’s message powerfully at the end.

Andy Cryer (Jim) and Ewen Cummins (Harry) supply the comedy, a little too much in a drunk scene with their wives, both otherwise completely convincing, Wendy Albiston (Vera) and Pauline Tomlin (Rita). However, the most powerful performances of the evening come from Robin Morrissey (Phil), his wife Sandra (Danielle Henry) and their children, played with astonishing confidence by alternating members of the Young Company. His divided loyalties are agonising at times, especially in his crazy speech as a clown at a children’s party, his loss of self-respect taking us back to Yosser Hughes.

Song (haunting ballads by Billy Bragg and Norma Waterson) and that glorious brass band music involve our emotions throughout. It was no more than justice when, after the curtain call, the band played an encore, the non-playing cast members staying modestly and inconspicuously aside.