Chris Eldon Lee reviews “The Pitmen Painters” which is at Shrewsbury’s Theatre Severn until Saturday 25th May 2013.
When I first reviewed Lee Hall’s ‘The Pitmen Painters’ at Wolverhampton exactly two years ago, it never occurred to me that the show could get any better. But Bill Kenwright’s new touring production, which pit stops in Shrewsbury this week, feels crisper, tighter and brighter…and manages to keep the jokes coming well into the more serious, soul-searching second half.
The play is based on the remarkable and true story of how a group of Northumberland coal miners almost accidentally developed into a famous school of untutored artists. The turning point was a moment of inspiration from their harassed teacher Robert Lyon who realised he was getting no where showing them black and white slides of the Sistine Chapel and sent them home to paint their own lives. The results were exceptional, and now treasured, art.
It very nearly never happened. If they’d successfully invited a lecturer in economics, rather than fine art, to their pre-war Workers’ Education Association evening classes, they might have wound up running the Bank of England instead.
Theatre Severn’s stage has been stripped to the loading bay for this show. Three large screens hang in the blackened void upon which the pitmen’s paintings are projected so that we can all join the art appreciation class. The pictures alone are worth the ticket, but I just have to tell you about the humour.
Lee Hall’s handling of his native Northumbrian working class wit is outstanding.
Watching the miners struggle to understand classical art, as most of us have done, is absolutely hilarious. Suddenly fine art is funny! Their critiques of each other’s efforts to produce a Marxist linocut or a Van Gogh vase of flowers left me with aching sides. And they mercilessly undercut the pretentious vocabulary of art – “It must be Modern Art ‘cus most of it was done this week” – and refuse to take Henry Moore’s sculptures seriously until they discover he was the son of a miner too.
Please believe me, you really don’t need a history of hanging around galleries to appreciate this artistry.
There are eight excellent performances. The five rough-hewn miners are given polished portrayals by genuine Northumbrian actors, whose collective comic timing is a joy. To my mind, the individual characterisations and close-knit ensemble work outshines even the platoon in “Dad’s Army”.
But Hall also gives us two upper class characters which precipitate the cultural collisions that make the play even funnier … but also deeper. The most silencing scenes are between the aristocratic shipping heiress Helen Sutherland and the most talented painter of them all, Oliver Kilbourn. The matter-of-fact, humble Philip Correia and the elegant, debonair actress Suzy Cooper explore Hall’s themes of class divide, patronage and belonging with oases of great sensitivity amid the gales of laughter.
This has to be the best ‘proper play’ to come to Theatre Severn so far. You should see it for two reasons. One is you’ll love it. And the other is to encourage more of the same.
Visit www.theatresevern.co.uk for bookings & information about Theatre Severn