The Pitmen Painters

How do you create a hit play? Take your last successful piece of writing, change a few details and make it into something new! Anyone who has not yet seen Lee Hall’s brilliant play The Pitmen Painters could be forgiven for thinking that he has done just this – on paper it seems like a very obvious reworking of his knockout film-turned-musical Billy Elliot. But in reality, although the plot seems similar, The Pitmen Painters is of a very different ilk.

The Pitmen Painters, which is based on a true story, focuses on five miners in the 1930s who decide to try and better themselves by taking weekly education classes at their local Workers’ Educational Association. Last term it was evolution, this time it’s art appreciation. However, when their middle class teacher Robert Lyon discovers that they have never actually seen any real art before, he realises that a traditional approach won’t work. How can they appreciate art when they have absolutely no foundation of what art is? The answer: create the art themselves. And so begins the story of The Ashington Group, a real-life group of miners whose foray into painting made them into some of the most important Modernist artists of the period.

It’s all starting to smell a bit familiar isn’t it? Okay so it’s about art rather than ballet, and it’s about a group of adult miners rather than the son of a miner, but it has the same message right? Absolutely not.

The main and crucial difference between Billy Elliot and The Pitmen Painters is that Billy Elliot is not about ballet. Yes Billy does ballet and it’s a main part of the plot, but really is it that important? It could have been anything. If Billy had wanted to be a painter or a writer rather than a dancer, the plot wouldn’t have changed very much because the focus is on Billy’s life and how he escapes his working class roots. But The Pitmen Painters is the complete opposite. The main focus here is art. Art is what drives the pitmen and art is what drives the play – it is as much a lesson in art history and art appreciation as it is a work of art itself.

And it is this, I think, which makes it so fantastic. The best plays are those which make you want to do something afterwards – you become invigorated or excited by a new idea or angry about something and want to change it, and what I really wanted to do after seeing The Pitmen Painters was pick up a paintbrush. And that is a truly remarkable thing.

The play is also fabulously funny. It really is a laugh a minute – so much so that lines of dialogue were sometimes lost amongst the deafening sound of a whole theatre cracking up at once, but it still somehow manages to be extremely serious and poignant. You feel as if the pitmen had written it themselves – yes they had tough lives and these are talked about, but really they are just trying to bumble along through life in the best way they can, with laughter and friends and socialism and art. The actors are fantastic, but there are no standout performances simply because it is such an ensemble piece – every performance is almost perfect and the five pitmen in particular balance each other beautifully.

I could find things to fault about The Pitmen Painters but I just don’t want to; I really absolutely loved it and I urge you to go and see it. Now excuse me whilst I go and paint something. It really is that infectious.

The Pitmen Painters is on tour, playing at Richmond Theatre in London from 5 – 10 August and then at the Grand Theatre in Swansea from 19 – 24. For more information and tickets, see the National Theatre website.