Close The Coalhouse Door
The Lowry, Salford
There is a wonderfully entertaining Brechtian thread running throughout Alan Plater’s musical drama, Close The Coalhouse Door. You may have characters being starved out of house-and-home, miners working all hours God sends in appalling conditions and children as young as six being sent down the mines – but there is always a defiant smile, a chirpy song and one of the cast stopping to remind audiences: “it’s just a play, pet.”
More than 40 years since it was first staged, Close the Coalhouse Door remains a hugely entertaining and powerful piece of drama and, despite its setting of long-running, coalfield industrial battles, the underlying austerity, inequalities and public dissatisfaction allow for a strong sense of relevance.
There are also, given the Brechtian influence, a scattering of topical references which add to the humour and entertainment and this Northern Stage and Live Theatre co-production cast knows just how to get the best out of everything on offer – and there is a lot on offer.
Plater, as one observer suggested: “was simply born to write,” his fluent writing was a delight and he was at the heart of that golden age of television with his ground-breaking police dramas, Z Cars and Softly Softly, along with the award-winning series The Beiderbecke Trilogy earned him the label “a writers’ writer.”
He wrote much more besides including A Very British Coup, Selwyn Froggit and Last of the Blonde Bombshells all which marked him out as an actors’ writer too.
The plot is simple - and complex too – with everything set in and around a Tyneside mining family house with everyone home to celebrate an anniversary. Throw together a couple of generation of working miners, neighbours, the local vicar, a son who as kicked the coal-digging tradition to go to university and his feisty, feminist student girlfriend. If that is not enough to get on with there is also the “Expert,” grafted onto the plot in true Brecht fashion to explain matters. Excellent stuff.
The nine-strong ensemble cast have a whale of a time with Plater’s writing and Alex Glasgow’s often funny, frequently rousing songs – which the author himself says are at the heart of the play – and it shows. Individually and together they create an atmosphere which spills over from the stage to embrace the audience in a theatrical bonding session which adds another layer to the drama and the fun. The sharply observed, witty dialogue, working-class polemic, a sprinkling of silliness and some tried, trusted and well-telegraphed jokes are a surefire, winning blend.
It would be unfair to single out any individual performance, the cast and Samuel West’s fine direction, ensure that the true stars of this highly entertaining piece are Plater’s writing together with Glasgow’s songs - exactly how it ought to be.
**Close the Coalhouse Door is at the The Lowry, Salford Quays, until 19 May
Daily Post.co.uk
There is a wonderfully entertaining Brechtian thread running throughout Alan Plater’s musical drama, Close The Coalhouse Door. You may have characters being starved out of house-and-home, miners working all hours God sends in appalling conditions and children as young as six being sent down the mines – but there is always a defiant smile, a chirpy song and one of the cast stopping to remind audiences: “it’s just a play, pet.”
More than 40 years since it was first staged, Close the Coalhouse Door remains a hugely entertaining and powerful piece of drama and, despite its setting of long-running, coalfield industrial battles, the underlying austerity, inequalities and public dissatisfaction allow for a strong sense of relevance.
There are also, given the Brechtian influence, a scattering of topical references which add to the humour and entertainment and this Northern Stage and Live Theatre co-production cast knows just how to get the best out of everything on offer – and there is a lot on offer.
Plater, as one observer suggested: “was simply born to write,” his fluent writing was a delight and he was at the heart of that golden age of television with his ground-breaking police dramas, Z Cars and Softly Softly, along with the award-winning series The Beiderbecke Trilogy earned him the label “a writers’ writer.”
The plot is simple - and complex too – with everything set in and around a Tyneside mining family house with everyone home to celebrate an anniversary. Throw together a couple of generation of working miners, neighbours, the local vicar, a son who as kicked the coal-digging tradition to go to university and his feisty, feminist student girlfriend. If that is not enough to get on with there is also the “Expert,” grafted onto the plot in true Brecht fashion to explain matters. Excellent stuff.
The nine-strong ensemble cast have a whale of a time with Plater’s writing and Alex Glasgow’s often funny, frequently rousing songs – which the author himself says are at the heart of the play – and it shows. Individually and together they create an atmosphere which spills over from the stage to embrace the audience in a theatrical bonding session which adds another layer to the drama and the fun. The sharply observed, witty dialogue, working-class polemic, a sprinkling of silliness and some tried, trusted and well-telegraphed jokes are a surefire, winning blend.
It would be unfair to single out any individual performance, the cast and Samuel West’s fine direction, ensure that the true stars of this highly entertaining piece are Plater’s writing together with Glasgow’s songs - exactly how it ought to be.
**Close the Coalhouse Door is at the The Lowry, Salford Quays, until 19 May
Daily Post.co.uk
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