Is education and culture the preserve of the privileged classes or can it be really open to all? Lee Hall (renowned for penning Billy Elliot) doesn’t explicitly ask these questions, but the ever-topical concepts are explored in this updated revival of a2007 National Theatre/Theatre Live production at the Oxford Playhouse this week.
The Pitman Painters, spanning 1934-47, is inspired by William Feaver’s book about a group of workers from the Northumberland mining town of Ashington, who became painters through a WEA (Workers Educational Association) course in Art Appreciation. Oxford’s academic and cultural institutions, though geographically far from the coal pits of the North East are ideologically closer to the championing of wider education: the University of Oxford was an early advocate for and collaborator on the WEA initiative at the beginning of the twentieth century, and the Oxford Playhouse, the Pegasus and many others provide community education and participation today.
My expectations were high as Lee Hall’s Spoonface Steinberg, starring Kathryn Hunter (seen at the Playhouse in 2001), remains one of my top-five theatrical moments. I was not disappointed with The Pitmen Painters. This production is hugely entertaining; it is very funny, is extremely well acted by a flawless cast, gives hope, while also leaving food for thought.
Centre stage before the opening, the old-fashioned ‘blackboard’ and easel, transformed by a projection of the play’s title, is a subtle hint at the possibilities for change in the lives of five under-educated men who are to be exposed to ‘culture’ for the first time in their lives. Max Roberts’ direction and the set, lighting and sound design work in harmony. Instead of the expected music to herald openings and scene changes, we hear actors’ footfalls as they simply and efficiently change scenes, industrial activity and sirens, and scenes are indicated on one of three projectors which are also used to give close-ups of the artists’ work.The characters are identifiably diverse, each one committed and convincing, both vocally and physically, in their roles: from Union rule-book carrier George (Nicholas Lumley), the talented and aesthetically astute Oliver (Philip Correia), whimsical ‘whippet’ painter Jimmy (Donald McBride), naïve work-shy Young Lad (Riley Jones – who also played artist Ben Nicholson), socialist dental mechanic Harry (Joe Caffrey), animated, enthusiastic tutor Robert (Louis Hilyer), down-to-earth artists’ model Susan (Catherine Dryden), to glamorous heiress Helen Sutherland (Suzy Cooper). The tone ranges between the profound and the funny: ‘There is no God’, ‘Art is about knowing thyself’, ‘there’s blobs, and there’s blobs!’. We are taken through a journey of discovery and we enjoy the ride, yet there is an interesting academic question as to who benefits most. Is transformation transient? Though the men’s aspiration for a University of Ashington did not materialise, ‘pitmen poets and pitmen painters’ did. Its reimagining is played out in full on the Oxford Playhouse stage this week. Catch it before the final siren.