Preview: Brassed Off, York Stage Musicals, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, October 22 to 27 (From York Press)

Preview: Brassed Off, York Stage Musicals, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, October 22 to 27

3:18pm Friday 19th October 2007 in

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PLAYING Danny the band leader in York Stage Musicals' production of Brassed Off will bring back memories for miner's son Ivan Chaplin.

"I liked the film, I thought it was good; some parts were better than others, and as I was brought up only four miles from Grimethorpe, some of the accents struck me as oh my God, he doesn't come from there'," he says.

"But I think Paul Allen's play is better than Mark Herman's film. I think that telling the story through the grandson just seems to be a more effective way of delivering it than simply having the story enacted on film. The grandson's narration accentuates the pathos of it."

Ivan's wider family still lives in the heart of the old Yorkshire mining community.

"My father was a miner originally but got out of the mines before I was born, at the end of the Thirties, early Forties.

"A couple of uncles of mine were miners up until the late Seventies, so they would have been involved at the time of the three-day week under Ted Heath's Conservatives, and while they were not directly involved in the Eighties' miners' strike, they were emotionally and politically committed to the cause and felt very strongly about what was happening," he says.

Ivan has brought such recollections to the rehearsals room.

"There's a scene in the play where they realise that Gloria is what they call management', and Jim says to Andy, old enough to be a scab then'. I said to the actors, It has to be a cut-throat thing to say; it's eyeball to eyeball, daggers drawn'," Ivan says.

"There are still families in Grimethorpe and Frickley where people cross the road to avoid them; people won't talk to families that were perceived to be scabs or undermined the strike action.

"It really tore the communities apart in Mexborough, South Emsall, Rossington, Grimethorpe, the real crucible of the Arthur Scargill brigade."

Ivan, a retired head teacher, had only one role in mind when auditions were announced for Brassed Off.

"It had to be Danny, with that big closing speech. I think it's so moving; you get yourself in quite a state; even though I've now done God knows how many times in rehearsal, it still gets to you."

Brassed Off, York Stage Musicals, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, October 22 to 27. Box office: 01904 623568 or online at www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk