Grimethorpe Colliery Band
Conductor: Ben Palmer
Royal Albert Hall 
Friday 2nd October

When the legend starts to sound like fact, film producers and television programme makers invariably opt for the colourful re-telling of a myth rather than the recall of the truth. 

The famous line from the film ‘The Man who shot Liberty Valance’ has itself morphed into the commercial mantra for the industry; from ‘Braveheart’ to ‘Downton Abbey’ with multiple detours from actuality in-between. 

It makes for great entertainment but terrible historical accuracy. 

Classic case

Mark Herman’s 1996 ‘Brassed Off’ film has become a classic case in point, as enjoyed by a packed Royal Albert Hall on the eve of the National Championship of Great Britain proved.  

Set a decade after the 1984 Miners’ Strike, it’s now a pyrrhic paean for a reality already being erased as well as never actually existing.  In 1990 Margaret Thatcher had been booted out of office, whilst a few years later Arthur Scargill tried to buy the NUM owned flat in the Barbican Centre in London under her ‘Right to Buy’ scheme. 

Set a decade after the 1984 Miners’ Strike, it’s now a pyrrhic paean for a reality already being erased as well as never actually existing.

Not even those packed up to the ‘gods’ who thought the television series ‘The Crown’ was a documentary rather than disneyfied version of royal history could still be hoodwinked by the image of Pete Postlethwaite riding his bike to band rehearsals whistling ‘The Floral Dance’ in full stage uniform.

In 1992 Grimethorpe attracted the media attention, but Easington, Frickley South Elmsall and Westoe all had bands, and eight other pits also shut in the following 12 months. Few in the audience could recall their names now.  Less than 24 hours later, fewer still returned to enjoy the contest itself. 

Does it matter

Still - does it matter when a myth can still a rekindle a passionate response as hormonally infused as that of Danny and Gloria?  And does it matter when it still had the ability to send over 5,000 people into nostalgic nirvana about a National Championship victory by a doomed pit’s brass band, led by its terminally ill conductor?

‘Does it bollocks’, as Postlethwaite says after Grimley Colliery’s celluloid victory on ‘William Tell’.

does it matter when a myth can still a rekindle a passionate response as hormonally infused as that of Danny and Gloria to send over 5,000 people into nostalgic nirvana 

Thank goodness then that band member Dave Arnold was on stage to remind them of what Grimethorpe was really like during filming, and what it is really like today in the pre-film Q&A session led by actor Jim Carter.  Thespians can never quite rid themselves of the memories of the make-believe world that are asked to portray.  

Grimey excellence

Thank goodness too for the excellence of Grimethorpe Colliery Band under conductor Ben Palmer in providing live accompaniment of such precisely disciplined, polished playing.

Soloists Hannah Plumridge, Kirsty Abbotts and others were outstanding, whilst the quality of the ensemble playing on all the old pot-boiler favourites was delivered with fresh enthusiasm.

Soloists Hannah Plumridge, Kirsty Abbotts and others were outstanding, whilst the quality of the ensemble playing on all the old pot-boiler favourites was delivered with fresh enthusiasm.

At the end of feel-good night of high-class entertainment, they could have got an overwhelmingly non-banding audience to sign a petition in their local Waitrose to start selling Yorkshire coal next to the humus and sun-dried vine-tomatoes.

30 years after its premiere, ‘Brassed Off’ has become something much, much more than its original self – and that is surely the lasting testament to its enduring appeal to an audience now sold on the brilliantly conceived retelling of its myth rather than its reality.

Iwan Fox