On Monday, for his special treat. I went with Owen to see Lee Hall's play THE PITMEN PAINTERS at the Lyttleton. The play has come back into the National's repertoire after being a sell-out hit at the smaller Cottesloe last year. The play also won Hall the Evening Standard Award for Best Play.

I wasn't familiar with the real-life story that the play is based on. In 1934 a group of Ashington miners requested through the Workers' Educational Association for an arts professor to teach them art appreciation. Robert Lyon struggled through an introductory lesson with slides of renaissance art to a nonplussed audience until it was suggested each man should do a lino-cut for the next lesson so they could 'learn by doing'.

Soon they graduated to painting scenes from their lives and slowly their self-taught canvasses were being feted by collectors and known artists with exhibitions both here and abroad. The play started off feeling like a typical class (in all senses of the word) comedy where the miners and teacher clash with vocabularies and outlook which made me wonder for most of the first half why exactly it was so successful.
But Hall's point-of-view came into sharper focus as the play moved into the period where the paintings start gaining a life outside of the community hall classroom. As their confidence grows artistically so the miners' confidence grows mentally and a visit to the Tate in London binds them together in a unique way when they see the work of Van Gogh.

Soon the Group and, in particular the most feted of them Oliver Kilbourn, find themselves wondering when does patronage become merely patronising. They publicly rebuke their teacher at a gallery launch when they take umbrage at being grouped together as a 'type' of painter, they argue amongst themselves as to what is valid art and more importantly Kilbourn rejects the patronage of a wealthy art collector as he ultimately cannot believe that he can make a living from painting.The Group's doubts are justified when the wealthy would-be patron decides that Modernism is last year's thing and moves onto ceramics and more importantly. are angered when Lyon tells them he is leaving to take up an important job in Scotland, a job that he won by writing a dissertation on his work with them.

Although the Group actually stretched to double figures, Hall has used dramatic licence to focus on five of them. He presents both sides of the argument - you can understand the art patron Helen Sutherland's accusation about the narrow-sightedness of their artistic vision and Lyon's rage at Kilbourn's lack of courage but Hall is definitely on the side of the miners and the play ends with them on the cusp of the new dawn of the post-war Labour government's nationalisation of the mining industry. After their struggle to establish a vision and a purpose to their lives apart from their worth as mining workers it is sadly bittersweet when the play's final moments have them singing a hymn to solidarity as titles flash onto screens reminding us of the failure of future governments to secure their industry and the dropping of Clause IV from the Labour Party's manifesto.
It all sounds a bit heavy and worthy but it is actually a hugely enjoyable play which gives you plenty to think about while also entertaining you with plenty of funny lines and memorable characters.

The production was originally staged in Newcastle's Live Theatre and the small company of actors are giving as a good an ensemble performance as the over-lauded AUGUST:OSAGE COUNTY. Ian Kelly gives a good performance as the enigmatic teacher Robert Lyon, giving plenty of shade to the character's joy and frustration with the men - he is also handy with charcoal himself as he draws a sketch onstage each night which is for sale afterwards in the bookshop! The miners are vividly played by Deka Walmsley, Brian Lonsdale and Michael Hodgson and I particularly enjoyed David Whitaker as Jimmy Floyd, especially in the nice comic scene where he shows his painting of a vase of flowers to the wealthy art patron and explains that the net curtain isn't particularly good as they haven't been taught how to do "see-through" yet.

There are nice performances by Lisa McGrillis as a young shopgirl who causes an uproar among the men when Lyon hires her to pose naked for a life study class and Philippa Wilson as the wealthy collector Helen Sutherland who gives the men the opportunity to experience galleries and modern art but who leaves them for new artistic pastures.
However the performance of the evening is from Christopher Connel as Oliver Kilbourn. He perfectly captures the struggle within Kilbourn, a man who slowly learns not only the method of painting but also the vocabulary and the confidence to express it while at the same time crippled by his background and class to take advantage of his gift.

There is a small exhibition in the Lyttleton circle foyer of the Group's work so now is a perfect time to catch this enjoyable and thought-provoking play.