'Brassed Off' by Paul Allen /Mark Herman

Director : Vic Gray

Dates : 21st - 23rd February 2008. 7:45pm Thameside theatre.

Cast:

Danny - John Scowen

Phil - David Carey

Sandra - Jill Snelling

Jim - Mike Jones

Vera - Madeleine Emmerson

Harry - Ian Horne

Rita - Jayne Jones

Andy - Wayne Prince

Gloria - Karen Reeves

Shane (Adult) - David Blackwell

Shane (Child) - Michael Harris

Nurses - Brenda Sansom and Tracy Carsberg

Bailiffs, Reporters, Picket line etc. - Brenda Sansom, Carole Holland

The brass band - Thurrock Spectrum Brass

 It is 1994 and the last great round of pit closures is coming to a climax. As Grimley Colliery prepares to ballot miners on the Coal Board’s redundancy offer, a huge question mark hangs over the local brass band: ‘Can’t have a colliery band wi’out a colliery, can you?’ says veteran miner and double bass player, Harry. They’re ready to pack it in, but then a new flugelhorn player wanders into the practice room. Gloria Mullins plays like a dream and has unfinished business with a young tenor horn player – they last saw each other round the back of the bus station when they were both fourteen.

The play is seen through the eyes of a small but sharp young boy, Shane. His father and mother are at their wits’ end, crippled by debt incurred when Phil, the father, was jailed and suspended during the miners’ strike ten years before. Can their marriage survive the knock of the bailiffs at the door? Phil’s father, Danny, Shane’s grandfather, is the band’s conductor, who sees no reason why 100 years of history shouldn’t reach its climax this year at the National Championship finals at the Albert Hall, pit or no pit. But Danny has also inherited a terrible legacy from a lifetime down the pit himself.