Reviews

The Pitmen Painters (tour – Westcliff, Palace Theatre)

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4 April 2013

Lee Hall‘s play
The Pitmen Painters is rapidly turning itself into
a class of its genre. That genre, however, is beginning to see a
trifle old-fashioned. If you’ve never seen the Live Theatre
Newcastle co-production with the National Theatre on its previous
tours, Max Roberts gives an edge to this story of a group of
Ashington miners who fell into art almost accidentally which allows
for the historical documentary cum agit-prop elements to be partly
submerged by the human interest story.

There’s an old adage
which says that those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. So artist
Robert Lyon (Louis Hilyer), who’s something of an also-ran member
of the 1930s art establishment, arrives one evening to lecture on art
appreciation for a Workers’ Educational Association group. They’re a
motley collection of hard-working men and somehow Lyon weans them off
the sort of high art with which they can’t really build a rapport and
onto making their own art.

One of the group,
Oliver Kilbourn (Philip Correia), has real talent which is spotted
by collector Helen Sutherland (Suzy Cooper) but her offer to
finance his work is something he cannot summon up the courage to
accept. Correeia has one marvellous speech when he explains the
significance of a Ben Nicholson abstract painting to the others,
gaining authority with every sentence. Nicholas Lumley as convenor
George Brown, Joe Cafffrey as Harry Wilson and Donald McBride as
Jimmy Floyd also give sterling performances.