Brassed Off

Liverpool Playhouse

Reviewed by Alan Thomson

Well, I never got round to seeing the film, namely because it seemed to have the air of some godawful British nineties feel-good shite about it. My feverish imaginings conjured up a Notting Hill/Billy Elliot type projectile vomit-inducing scenario; and thus I originally dismissed it with a knowing shake of my head, and went down the road to rent Death-Lizards On Acid IV or something equally improving from the video store. In the words of the quintessential Viz letter then, imagine my surprise when Brassed Off came to Liverpool adapted for the stage, and turned out to be a supercharged socialistic tract on the iniquities of U.K government mining policy!! With an Oompah Oompah score! How wrong can you be?

Yes! What with whatsisname the gay one from Hollyoaks (in case his lawyer is reading this, I meant the character), reprising Ewan MacGregor’s role in the flick; and full, live, in-yer-face brass bands on stage, Brassed Off was a highly watchable comedy/tragedy/musical thingy. The production tackled the issues of unemployment, loyalty to unions or family, and tradition versus change, without getting po-faced or icky-sticky sentimental; and the acting was, well… fucking hell, it’s not meant to be the bloody Caucasian Chalk Circle. No, it’s something the whole family can go to and laugh, cry and have an entertaining (a concept unfortunately alien to many luvvie types) whatever. And then look slightly uncomfortable as your six-year-old sits there listening mesmerised to the sort of potty mouth colloquialisms that would have a sailor on shore leave with Tourettes agape at. Good stuff. By the way, did the people who originally wrote this stuff know that many brass bands in the nineteenth-century working-class communities were funded by pit bosses so that their employees would be distracted from politics?

It’s all a plot comrades…