Of the films made in the final decade of the last century about people trying to find a way of making it in the industrial wastelands left by the Thatcher era, Billy Elliot became a West End musical, The Full Monty has toured as a play several times and this play, adapted by journalist Paul Allen in 1997 for Sheffield Theatres, has been produced many times, including here at the Octagon ten years ago.
It is set in the fictional Yorkshire mining town of Grimley, which has had a miners' brass band for more than a century, now led proudly by Danny. However, there is an industrial dispute over the potential closure of the pit, and the miners are being balloted over whether to accept £20,000 in redundancy money (soon increased to £23,000) or continue to fight to keep the pit open. Some, especially veterans of the 1984 strike, wish to fight on, arguing that if the pit closes, the whole town will shut down, but others are struggling financially and the money looks attractive.
For Danny's son Phil, it isn't just his ancient trombone that is falling apart, as his marriage is also on the rocks—most of their belongings are being gradually repossessed, but he knows how much the band means to his dad, even if his wife (Danika Etchells) can't see why he is paying his subs to the band when they're struggling to put food on the table. Jim (Greg Patmore) and Harry (Matt Ian Kelly) are also under pressure from their wives (Maxine Finch and Joanna Holden) to quit the band, and they nearly do, until young Gloria, whose grandad was once down the pit in Grimley, joins them.
Gloria was the love of Andy's life when they were teenagers before she moved away, and they get back together, but things turn sour when they find out she is working for management, even though she is submitting a report to say the pit is not only viable but profitable—though, as Andy tries to persuade her, the decision to close the pit was made even before she was employed.
Woven into this story is the band, in which most of the cast play an instrument, supplemented by members of Eagley Band from Bolton and Westhoughton-based Wingates Band, which Danny takes to the band competitions in Lancashire, where they do more drinking than playing, before entering them into a competition that could take them to the Albert Hall (the London one, not the Bolton one), until the black dust in his lungs makes him too ill to conduct.
Phil's eight-year-old son Shane (Andrew Turner) also appears as an adult narrator looking back to 1994, which seems an odd choice, as the narration he does is very sparse and not necessary, so he goes between playing a child with two real child actors as his brother and sister to standing around watching for most of the time. A lot of the dialogue also feels like narration, as the characters do a lot of describing the plot to each other for the benefit of the audience. At times, it feels very disjointed as it cuts between short scenes, something that works well on film but can feel dragged out and repetitive on stage.
The episodic nature of the piece means that the actors don't have much to go on to establish their characters or how they bond with the people closest to them to the audience, although Russell Richardson is an affecting Danny, it's hard not to feel sorry for Joey Hickman's Phil, torn between his loyalties to his dad and the band or his wife and kids, and Barney Taylor and Hannah Woodward make us want their Andy and Gloria to get together by the end.
When the band strikes up, it does sound terrific in the Octagon's in-the-round space, though fans of the music may have wished for more of it. The production has some strong scenes, and of course we are rooting for our heroes at the end, but as a whole it doesn't quite come together.