This remarkable play by Lee Hall is both compelling and deeply compassionate.
It tells the story of a group of 1930s Geordie pit workers, who hire a professional art teacher to give them lessons in painting at sixpence a week.
Unknowingly, they have started upon a journey which will deepen their lives and change their attitudes, since all art is a form of redemption from the mundane and the everyday. They argue about the meaning of art, they have a nicely-developed sense of the ridiculous and yet out of this morass of ignorance and educational ineptitude, fine human beings gradually emerge.
There are many fine scenes where the stage fills with vivid characterisations as the men argue, are violently critical of each other’s pictures and ponder the nature of social morality in the tough, uncompromising (yet infinitely loyal) world from which they come. And a word of praise must be given to Riley Jones, for his performance as the young out-of-work lad with a heart-rending stammer.
In one beautifully written sequence, a handsome young pitman, Oliver Kilbourn (Philip Correia in an outstanding performance) is offered a steady stipend by a wealthy female art dilettante (the equally splendid Suzy Cooper) which is a dream escape from the mines. But is this a sexual admission to an interest from the middle-aged female patron in something a little more than her protege’s artistic talents? The point is left open in a rare bitterly truthful interchange, which touches the heart.
The Pitman Painters will be at Severn Theatre, Shrewsbury, May 20-25.
