Focus Birmingham

Originally produced by Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s acclaimed Live Theatre, and after a sell-out season at the National Theatre and also on Broadway, Pitman Painters recently came on tour to the Wolverhampton Grand where I enjoyed the audio described performance on the evening of 3 June. Pitman Painters is written by Lee Hall, creator of the world wide sensation Billy Elliott. It features a group of miners form Ashington, Northumberland who, in 1934, hired a professor to teach an art appreciation class. Rapidly abandoning theory in favour of practice, the pit men began to paint and within a few years the most avant-garde artists became their friends, and their work was acquired by prestigious collectors. However every day they worked as before, down the mine. Examining the lives of a group of ordinary men who do extraordinary things, this deservedly, award-winning play is an extremely moving and, at the same time, humorous production.

Our audio describer on this occasion was Julia Grundy, who took visually impaired patrons and their companions onto the stage an hour before curtain-up to get a sense of, what was, a very minimal set. Julia took pains to explain the important use of the lighting in this production which brought to life the different locations of the play, including the social club and Newcastle Central station. Then as part of this touch tour we were shown a number of the costumes and some of the props, including a few of the paintings which Julia spent time describing to us. Taking our seats 15 minutes before the start of the show, equipped with our fully charged head-sets, we were then able to tune in to Julia’s ‘live’ pre-show notes reminding those of us who had been on the touch tour what we had seen close-up on the stage, and giving details of the cast. A play, as opposed to a musical is, I suspect, a greater challenge for an audio describer but, thanks to Julia’s considerable experience she skilfully wove in her commentary around the characters’ dialogue - to enable us to get the most out of this riveting production. On the subject of dialogue, as someone who hails from Tyneside, I must commend the actors on their excellent North East accents – notoriously difficult to do properly!

The next audio described performance at the Wolverhampton Grand will be the exuberant musical ’ Footloose’ on the evening of Thursday 23 June 2011 and details of how to book tickets, places on the touch tour and head sets, can be obtained by ringing the box office on 01902 429212.