Brassed Off!

Product Information

A Lancashire man named Harry Mileman took over the band in 1947 following a short spell by George Hespe (well known for his brass band piece ‘The Three Musketeers’). The piece for London had already been chosen. It was to be ‘A New Jerusalem’ by Philip Wilby. The piece starts with an off-stage trumpet part that was fundamental to the whole ethos of the piece. The Voice of God started the work and returned twice more, the final time very near the end. To make the effect convincing and achieve the spine-tingling character of the whole piece – The Voice of God needed to be unseen by the audience throughout. Andy was a chronic diabetic, and at lunchtime had inadvertently missed a meal. His wife had taken their young son out for the day, knowing that Andy was tied up with the contest. In mid-afternoon, Andy suffered a ‘hypo’ and was laid motionless on the kitchen floor until his frantic mother found him at around tea-time. He was rushed to Barnsley General and was later released, but was in no fit state to play an Area Contest. We realised this as we signed on, minus a solo horn player. Grimethorpe Aria’ (1973) however is a totally different kettle of fish and remains one of the most important brass compositions of the post-war period. Howarth is, of course, a champion of Birtwistle’s music and one of the leading orchestral conductors of his works and the listener is rewarded with a performance that should have led Birtwistle becoming as well known a brass band composer as say, Robert Simpson, who’s works started to appear at around the same time. The band entered its first contest in July 1918 at Belle Vue, Manchester and under their professional conductor, J. A. Greenwood, obtained third prize playing ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ by Hermann Goetz. Six conductors came to Grimethorpe between 1917 and 1931 and in 1931 William Foster took over. He was a hard uncompromising man whose solid grit brought the best out of the bandsmen. The first contest under his leadership was on 12th March 1932. The band was unplaced on this occasion but on the 28th March and on the 16th April the band won first prizes under ‘Bill’ Foster.

The band were on an uncontrollable high, and were whisked off stage onto the steps of the RAH for the worlds media to get another ounce of flesh. It was as if we had won already, but then we had to come down to earth until we found out whether or not the 3 adjudicators agreed with the whole audience. The following year the band got booked for 70 concerts and this took some reducing, even now the band are doing 50-60 concerts / competitions a year and has a full concert list a year in advanced. On arriving in Japan the band were welcomed to an official reception provided by the Japanese Brass Band Association where there were representatives from 11 bands from around the Tokyo area. After a day off on the Sunday to get over the jet lag, it was down to work.The hospital scene, with Pete Postlethwaite in bed, was filmed at Doncaster College, not a hospital. The festival scene in Delph was filmed on Monday 23 October 1995. [6] It’s the character of Gloria, along with Ewan McGregor’s Andy, meanwhile, that proved to be the thrust of the film’s promotional campaign when the film made it to the States. Bizarrely, Brassed Off was actually sold as a romantic comedy (!) by Miramax in the US, and to this day, the DVD cover highlights Ewan McGregor’s Andy and Tara Fitzgerald’s Gloria. In fact, the eager accompanying sales copy is worth citing:

The stars in the series were, Nicholas and Robert Childs, Maurice Murphy, Don Lusher, Guy Barker, Gordon Campbell and the brilliant Derek Watkins, screeching in the gods on “We’ve only Just Begun”. Needless to say that excerpts from the series were used to make a CD entitled “Stars in Brass”. Frank Renton gathered the band together for his usual pre-match pep talk. Frank always finds the right words for the right occasion and surpassed himself in motivating the boys for this one.This delightfully entertaining comedy treat features hot screen stars Ewan McGregor (STAR WARS EPISODE 1: THE PHANTOM MENACE, MOULIN ROUGE) and sexy Tara Fitzgerald (SIRENS). It’s the critically acclaimed story about two old friends — and ex-lovers — whose surprise reunion turns their lives … and the lives of everyone else in town … hilariously upside down!”

Talk about the strong language used in the movie. Did it seem necessary or excessive? What did it contribute to the movie? And then there’s the heart-breaking shot. Herman’s close-up on Tompkinson’s tear-stained face, arguably the character whose family has lost the most, is perfect.

On The Go

Philip Wilby commented “a sure triumph of the human spirit, a sense of liberty and resurrection drawn out of sorrow and pain” Beginning in early 1993, groups of miners' wives camped outside some pits' gates and outside the Department of Trade and Industry in London. [3] This is referred to in the film. It contrasts with the muted response from the mineworkers, some of whom sang Shut the pit! to the tune of the song Here We Go! from the 1984–85 strike. [3] Plot [ edit ] As we arrived at the hall, we were met by hundreds of people all cheering us on. It seemed like much more than just the normal contest goers. There were of course the obligatory 4 or 5 camera crews that followed us into the bowels of RAH. But it may have been Grimethorpe’s very youth that has helped it to break with tradition, and interest some of the world’s leading composers in writing for a medium which has, up until now, been regarded as apart from the mainstream development of music.

The passionate band conductor, Danny Ormondroyd, finds he is fighting a losing battle to keep the rest of the band members committed. His son, Phil, is badly in debt and becomes a clown for children's parties, but this fails to prevent his wife and children walking out on him. In debt, Phil votes for the redundancy money, which he becomes ashamed of. As Danny collapses in the street and is hospitalised, Phil suffers a mental breakdown while entertaining a group of children, as part of a harvest festival in a church. He refers to himself as "Coco the scab"—a name that he had been called by a debt collector who he had asked to wait until the redundancy money had come through. Eventually, he attempts suicide by trying to hang himself, but is taken to the hospital. Phil reveals to Danny that in light of the colliery's closure, the band has decided not to continue playing. Paul Allen adapted Mark Herman's screenplay for the stage, the production premiering at the Crucible Theatre Sheffield on 17 March 1998, with music performed by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band. The play transferred to the Royal National Theatre in June before embarking on a UK tour. [16] In 2014 a new UK tour was mounted by the Touring Consortium Theatre Company, coinciding with the thirtieth anniversary of the miners' strike. [17] In popular culture [ edit ] In 1995, Major Peter Parkes became Professional Musical Director and Garry Cutt became Resident Musical Director in a three year partnership deal. Also in this year the band moved into new premises in the Acorn Centre in the village of Grimethorpe. These premises, offered by Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council, are part of a regeneration project funded by European grants in response to industry closure, and are located in the refurbished Coal Board Area Headquarters buildings. The Major left the band in 1999 where Garry Cutt took over the mantle of Professional Conductor. In 1997 Grimethorpe became the first band to perform in the European Parliament Building in Strasburg, also travelling to Norway to appear in the Norwegian Film Festival at Haguesung to premier the showing of the film Brassed Off. The following year they appeared to an estimated television audience of 100 million people when they were part of the interval entertainment at the Eurovision Song Contest at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham accompanying violin virtuoso Vanessa Mae and opera singer Lesley Garrett. The band appeared at, and in the World premier of the stage version of Brassed Off at the Crucible theatre, Sheffield, and also became Brass Band in Residence at London’s Royal College of Music.

Follow Us

From the dreariest of landscapes, the glint and gleam of an inimitable brass sound lit up the lives of men who worked in darkness. Emerging from the pit, they made for the bandroom where, with a discipline natural to an industry where self-control means life or death, they practised and rehearsed to the impeccable standards which have won them recognition as masters of their art. Preparations started in earnest about 2 weeks before the date of the contest. However nothing could prepare us for the events that were about to unfold and as we entered the final week we were unknowingly just starting a story that would be covered worldwide and would throw our carefully planned schedule into utter chaos!