Writer and Director: Nicola Pollard
Nicola Pollard has set herself the formidable challenge of reducing a mass of real stories of miners and their families to a two-hander to tour the various mining regions of England for Up the Road Theatre. Despite the good intentions and the noble efforts of Ellinor Larsson and Philip Gill, the enterprise is only partially successful.
Much about the staging is very effective. Aileen Kelly’s set design is simple, but works well in the non-theatrical venues the tour takes in: a couple of chairs and a table and a pile of furniture initially covered by a dust sheet. The actors change character – and their accents, covering pretty much the full range of mining districts – by simply donning or doffing a shawl or a cap or doing up or undoing a tie. It’s all very neatly done, though scenes too often don’t reach their natural conclusion.
Ellinor Larsson is especially moving as the wife of a miner struck with emphysema; Philip Gill delivers a telling speech from the other side in the 1984 strike – the police bussed in; she breaks down spectacularly with the news that her husband is buried in a rockfall; he mops up the pithead baths with a droll commentary on how to keep your soap; they combine in delight as a father and daughter in a Coal Queen triumph; in a total change of gear, they admire the produce at a vegetable show in their best nearly-posh accents.
The difficulty comes with the ongoing recurring tale. Larsson is apparently a researcher interviewing Gill as a retired miner, but it soon becomes obvious that she is looking to find the reason for his cutting himself off from his former mentor and buddy, her late grandfather. As she reads chunks of her grandad’s diary, he mellows, but it’s never wholly convincing. The cause of the split proves to be that, under extreme financial pressure, her grandfather went back to work while the 1984/85 strike was still ongoing. Her mother apparently had not told her of this, but “scabs” were surely not capable of keeping their secrets in pit villages. The tone is uneven, large chunks of reading punctuated by violent outbursts.
For all that the message is clear and true: below ground you looked after your neighbour and he looked after you. It’s a fair elegy for the mining industry, skilfully played by Ellinor Larsson and Philip Gill.
Reviewed on 22nd March 2023.
