Birmingham Rep

Until June 21

WHILE this play runs until June 21, Stourport Brass Band's stint finishes on Saturday when their place is taken by City of Birmingham Band and then Jackfield Elcock Reisen Band.

Judging from the reception of theatre goers, actors and staff after this performance, you had better get along before Saturday so as not to miss a real treat

The setting is a South Yorkshire mining town in 1994 at the height of pit closures.

It generates a huge range of emotions and moods.

Bernard Kay as Danny, the band leader, for whom nothing matters as much as music, is a powerful figure and telling his band in the rehearsal room scene that its performance of The Floral Dance was a pile of **** was clearly contradicted by the audience's reception!

Stourport Band members played with passion and conviction and were totally involved in the spirit of the play, there being no doubt that they were not just there to provide some live music.

After this number Gloria, played by Lois Naylor, enters and gives a beautiful performance on the flugal horn of Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez ("Orange Juice to you lot").

The band accompanied her sensitively, creating some wonderful effects in the quiet passages.

It was evident that the band and actors had developed a good rapport.

Band members were clearly impressed with the actors' "busking skills", which were well displayed in the marching scene at the Whit Friday contests.

On the third time round the stage, the band ends up with cornets and horns in the auditorium while the trombones, euphoniums and basses face the audience from the stage to play the stirring bass solo from the march Slaidburn.

The second act gets under way with a reduced group playing a reprise of the march Death or Glory, which opened the play.

While the playing was "tight", the demeanour was very obviously the aftermath of rather too many drinks during the Whit Friday contests.

By contrast, a haunting performance for the critically ill Danny in his hospital bed of his favourite tune Danny Boy, in near dark from the back of the stage, showed the players in reflective mood.

The final scene in the Albert Hall sums up the play's belief in the power of people to overcome terrible adversity and Stourport Band played as if they really believed they were the Grimley Colliery Band bidding to become national champions.

The William Tell Overture, from the opening cornet fanfare, was controlled but never let up for pace or range of dynamics.

The final number, Land of Hope and Glory, was a fitting tribute to Danny who, after affirming his conviction that nothing matters more now than people, symbolically passes his baton to his grandson Shane to conduct while he leaves the stage for the very last time.

AB