A WORLD-FAMOUS brass band from Barnsley are preparing to make history with their first ever performance of Brassed Off Live in their home county.
As part of the Opera North in the City festival, Grimethorpe Colliery Band will perform on July 29 at Millennium Square, Leeds.
The much-loved 1996 film, starring Ewan McGregor, Tara Fitzgerald, Pete Postlethwaite and Stephen Tompkinson, follows the struggles of a colliery band after the closure of their pit.
Its bittersweet story is loosely based on Grimethorpe’s own - in 1992, just five days before the band was due to compete in the national championships at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the village’s colliery was earmarked for closure.
They battled on to triumph at the contest and returned to the Royal Albert Hall last year to celebrate their centenary with the first performance of Brassed Off Live.
Grimethorpe’s second live performance of the soundtrack later this month follows their recent qualification for this year’s National Brass Band Championship, which will take them back to the Royal Albert Hall to represent Yorkshire in October.
Writer and director, Mark Herman, said: “It was both an education and a privilege to work with Grimethorpe Colliery Band on Brassed Off, and they have provided me with many fond memories.
“There was a real spirit among the cast and crew on the film and the band’s dedication to the cause was an example of that, and will always be appreciated by me.
“I suspect that the audience in Leeds won’t be new to the film, nor will they be new to the music. What will be new to them, and what will surprise them, is the power of the mix of the two. It’s a film about musicians, and the musicians are there in front of you.
“For Brassed Off Live, we’ve taken all the music off the film, and the band have just the one chance, there and then, to match it. It’s their ability to do this, without even a flicker of an eyebrow, that makes them, in my unbiased view, the best band in the world.”
Peter Haigh, the band’s director, said: “At first I was not keen on the idea of a film being made about the pit closures. As one of the last to leave the colliery, I’d watched the buildings being demolished, and the loss of so many livelihoods, but I now hold my hands up and admit that Brassed Off was a marvellous idea.
“It has become a big part of the band’s identity and it’ll be fantastic to be able to bring the spectacle of such an inspiring story back to its home in the north of England.”
