The Pitmen Painters

I finally got to see this last week with my sons.

The first half is a brilliant explanation of what art is about, and could have saved me about a term of lectures on my degree course. I loved the linking of the action to the paintings being projected on the screen. We gulped down our ice-creams in the interval, eager to get back to the second half, where we found our optimism being gently, but carefully and thoroughly, deflated.

The second half is really the history of the gradual decline in impetus of the group, and the failure to move into the mainstream, using the Ashington group and their adventures as metaphors for socialism and class division. Choosing to end the play at the nationalisation of the coal mines made a double underscoring of the point, which was probably unnecessary, but allowed them to end on a stirring song.

On the way out I overheard someone grumbling that the play lost its way in the second half. On the contrary, I think the pitmen painters might have lost their way, but the play didn't.