Fringe Review
Fringe UK-wide
Close the Coalhouse Door
Genre: Drama
Venue: Northern Stage, Newcastle
Low Down
An exhilarating ride through the strikes, victories and frustrations of British mining history, the show captures the political anger and fight for justice of ordinary people from the formation of the first Unions in 1831. At its heart beats the joyous, soulful music of Alex Glasgow, inspired by the anthems of working people.
Review
A witty and highly political piece of theatre, Close the Coalhouse Door is a perfect potted history of miners' struggles over the past 150 years. It is a charming comedy, shot through with pathos and heartache. At the start we see an abandoned pit cottage which a miner and tweed-wearing man are trying to get into. They are introduced as a miner and an 'expert'. The miner is a typical Geordie lad, and the expert a clipped Southerner, who informs us that he is here to explain the nuances and ways of the miners for the uninitiated throughout the course of the play - a statement which prompts gales of laughter from the audience.
So in the first few minutes of the play the fourth wall is broken down, and the audience are welcomed into the story - invited to sit in the cosy living room of this mining family to hear the stories of the unions and strikes. The play is very Brechtian in style, with signs announcing what subjects the scenes are addressing, songs punctuating the narrative, and an ensemble cast signifying their various roles with an item of costume or an overblown accent. And why not choose this distinct mode of performance for a topic which Brecht would have greatly approved of - the struggle of the proletariat against capitalist oppressors. The characters in the play are all overt socialists, and there is a wonderful song about the 'ABC my dad taught' me, where communist heroes such as Marx, Lenin and Trotsky are all honoured with a letter and a line.
The play manages to strike the important balance of informing the audience about the horrors experienced by men and boys working underground, without laying it on too thickly. When we are shown the events of the first union meeting held on Newcastle's Town Moor, it is incredible to think that they were fighting for boys of 6 to work only a 12 hour day (as opposed to the 18 hour day they were currently working). It is also very apparent how much the people of County Durham and surrounding areas struggled to win these labour reforms, through strikes, evictions and pay cuts - with the refrain echoing throughout the piece, that patience is what a miner requires, as it seems that reforms tended to occur around 40 years after they were first called for.
Close the Coalhouse door featured some fine performers who worked very well together as an ensemble, bantering with Geordie humour and telling jokes, whilst being generous enough to share the stage so no one actor stood out or stole the limelight. The set of the broken down pit cottage was used to good effect; placed on a revolve, it spun around to create a living room, a street and the inside of a mine - whilst the iconic symbol of the mining past - the winding tower - loomed above the stage.
The play did not address the most recent miner's strikes, or the widespread closure of the pits in the 1980's - an unusual, but wise decision. The majority of the audience will have some awareness of the history of the pit closures, and many may have direct recollections of the miner's strikes. It is therefore more interesting to focus on the lesser known elements of mining history - the formation of the unions and the road to nationalisation. The play also effectively conveys the sense of community experienced in the mining villages, the skills and traditions passed from father to son, and thus without having to spell it out, we are made to consider the devastating effect that the pit closures had on these northern towns and villages.
Receiving a standing ovation at the end, the play seemed to rouse passions and strike a chord with many of the audience members in Newcastle. The play was certainly a thought provoking piece of theatre, with some memorable songs, and a chilling ode to the future rounding off the evening - a poem of the miners' hopes following the nationalisation of the mines, which dramatic irony renders painful to an audience in 2012 who have full knowledge of the true events which have unfolded over the past 40 years.
Reviewed by AB 18/4/12
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