Hallmarked history lesson
Friday 18 May 2012
Lee Hall writes from his background and experiences in the industrial and trade union heartland of Newcastle, the inspiration for some of his most powerful and popular work.
In his plays Billy Elliot and The Pitmen Painters he celebrates the complexities of working-class culture and the latter aims to show how, between the two world wars "there was a great hunger for education and betterment."
The older Hall gets, he says, the more interested he is in exploring the richness of working-class culture "which is as sophisticated and varied as any other."
Hall grew up in a working-class, but not particularly political, family. His father was a self-employed painter and decorator and his Mum was a housewife.
"I was lucky that at my school I had scores of inspirational teachers who had come through the '60s and helped politicise me," he recalls.
"They introduced me to poetry, drama and art. I am still friends with them today."
Growing up in the '70s and '80s, he was aware of this heritage as well as of the politics going on around him. "It was only after university that I put everything together and I take the best of both worlds into my work," he says.
Hall went to Cambridge University, a big jump for a young working-class man, where he encountered the upper class for the first time.
"They didn't have a clue about what ordinary people thought or did," he says.
"The prejudice was more subtle but I had been made confident by working in the youth theatre, being politicised by what was going on in Newcastle and I was confident in arguing my case."
Hall's work explores many issues relating to the lives of working-class people and his portrayal of working-class men is particularly outstanding.
Compared to most other drama, his male characters are complex, sensitive and heart-warming.
"I write about the people I grew up with, my dad, other people's dads and grandfathers," he stresses. "I think that they were sophisticated emotionally and intellectually, quite well read.
"Being hard blokes in rough manual jobs didn't make them one-dimensional."
He still has strong links with Newcastle, where his mother lives, but it has changed a lot. "The industries that fuelled the politics and culture has gone and it feels a different place.
"And the things I write about are rare although the connections with the past and radical politics are still there."
His latest production is Close The Coalhouse Door, which he has updated from the original 1960s drama written by Alan Plater with music by Alex Glasgow.
"Alan was a great influence. I grew up on his work on TV and his absolutely ingrained socialism that feeds everything he does.
"He writes about 'ordinary' people with a humane and sympathetic touch."
The play looks back at the 1960s and the sense of optimism that existed then - even though there were pit closures and conflict - and how that hope disappeared with the sweeping away of mines, jobs and communities.
Hall believes that as a society we are impoverished by that destruction. "The miners' strike in 1984-5 and the closure programme was an act of political and cultural vandalism in smashing up organised labour in a very deliberate way.
"Arthur Scargill was right. And what is happening now is from the seeds of 25 years ago."
"People did fight back, unions do matter. It is very important that people know their own history."
Hall is clear that theatre has an important role in educating people of that past heritage and Close The Coalhouse Door is another stage in that signifcant journey.
Close The Coalhouse Door is touring nationally. For details, visit www.closethecoalhousedoor.co.uk
The older Hall gets, he says, the more interested he is in exploring the richness of working-class culture "which is as sophisticated and varied as any other."
Hall grew up in a working-class, but not particularly political, family. His father was a self-employed painter and decorator and his Mum was a housewife.
"I was lucky that at my school I had scores of inspirational teachers who had come through the '60s and helped politicise me," he recalls.
"They introduced me to poetry, drama and art. I am still friends with them today."
Growing up in the '70s and '80s, he was aware of this heritage as well as of the politics going on around him. "It was only after university that I put everything together and I take the best of both worlds into my work," he says.
Hall went to Cambridge University, a big jump for a young working-class man, where he encountered the upper class for the first time.
"They didn't have a clue about what ordinary people thought or did," he says.
"The prejudice was more subtle but I had been made confident by working in the youth theatre, being politicised by what was going on in Newcastle and I was confident in arguing my case."
Hall's work explores many issues relating to the lives of working-class people and his portrayal of working-class men is particularly outstanding.
Compared to most other drama, his male characters are complex, sensitive and heart-warming.
"I write about the people I grew up with, my dad, other people's dads and grandfathers," he stresses. "I think that they were sophisticated emotionally and intellectually, quite well read.
"Being hard blokes in rough manual jobs didn't make them one-dimensional."
He still has strong links with Newcastle, where his mother lives, but it has changed a lot. "The industries that fuelled the politics and culture has gone and it feels a different place.
"And the things I write about are rare although the connections with the past and radical politics are still there."
His latest production is Close The Coalhouse Door, which he has updated from the original 1960s drama written by Alan Plater with music by Alex Glasgow.
"Alan was a great influence. I grew up on his work on TV and his absolutely ingrained socialism that feeds everything he does.
"He writes about 'ordinary' people with a humane and sympathetic touch."
The play looks back at the 1960s and the sense of optimism that existed then - even though there were pit closures and conflict - and how that hope disappeared with the sweeping away of mines, jobs and communities.
Hall believes that as a society we are impoverished by that destruction. "The miners' strike in 1984-5 and the closure programme was an act of political and cultural vandalism in smashing up organised labour in a very deliberate way.
"Arthur Scargill was right. And what is happening now is from the seeds of 25 years ago."
"People did fight back, unions do matter. It is very important that people know their own history."
Hall is clear that theatre has an important role in educating people of that past heritage and Close The Coalhouse Door is another stage in that signifcant journey.
Close The Coalhouse Door is touring nationally. For details, visit www.closethecoalhousedoor.co.uk
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