PARTNERS in real life, Andrew Dunn and Andrina Carroll will play husband and wife Phil and Sandra in the mining-community drama Brassed Off at York Theatre Royal next month.

The York-based couple, together with their son Elliott, will star in artistic director Damian Cruden's repertory production from September 6 to 25, and both have family reasons for wanting to participate.

Brassed Off, adapted for the stage by Paul Allen from the hit film by York writer-director Mark Herman, features brass music contributions by the Shepherd's Building Group Brass Band and Harrogate Brass Band.

"First and foremost, it was the subject matter that attracted me, and then it was the fact the show had live brass band music, which I liked for sentimental reasons," says Andrew. "My dad loved brass music, and he's no longer with us."

North Easterner Andrina comes from a Northumberland mining family. "My granddad was a miner and my cousin, who's the same age as me, lost his job as a miner at Shilbottle," she says.

"He's in the prison service now, and Shilbottle has reinvented itself as a village in commuter land for people who work in Newcastle."

Cruden's production marks the twentieth anniversary of the miners' strike, the high-noon battleground between union power and Thatcherism.

"I was just starting out as an actor at the time of the strike, and I was doing Jack And The Beanstalk with the Durham Theatre Company, which we took around the pit villages," says Andrina. "So we saw the kind of poverty, and the hardships people were suffering, that you see in the play. Now it's the anniversary of the strike, the Selby coalfield is closing this year, so you can't help but be aware of that and be affected by it."

Andrew concurs: "It still hits home, the memory of it being a divided country. During the strike, I was at York Arts Centre doing John Godber's Up'n'Under and Bouncers for Hull Truck, and I can remember miners with collection buckets standing outside the Jorvik Centre," he says.

Mining is at the core of Brassed Off but Andrew says the play stretches across a broader canvas. "It's not just about miners but people in a small community having something imposed on them, and how they deal with that crisis.

"With it being a working-class story, like John Godber's writing, I understand it, and I feel this is a story - the miners' story - that needs to be told."

Andrew, who featured heavily in the first series of 55 Degrees North on BBC1 this summer, last appeared on the Theatre Royal stage in 1990 in Godber's skiing comedy, On The Piste.

"I remember they tried everything to get the skis to move on the slope in that show. We did everything on that slope, even having drinks in a bar scene on it. It did wonders for the calf muscles," he says.

Andrew and Andrina met when performing in Catherine Cookson's Fifteen Streets at the Belgrade in Coventry in 1897, since when they have appeared together in Oliver Twist and Twelfth Night for Hull Truck, and Godber's two-hander, September In The Rain, in which Andrew played another miner, Jack.

"We've also done a film together, Between Two Women, in 2000," says Andrina. "I pinched his wife. It was set in the 1950s and my mum said 'Eeh, I didn't think those things happened in those days!"

Andrina and Andrew enjoy working together, and spent nine months on the road in September In The Rain. "One of the things that works about our relationship is that we seem to be very good at adapting to being together or being apart, whatever the business throws at us. Then there is the added factor of Elliott because he takes you back into the real world of getting him home, getting him to bed and getting him up the next morning," she says.

This time, for the first time, Elliot will be on stage with his parents, playing their son, the play's narrator.

"Initially, when he was asked if he'd like to be in a play, he said 'No' but then he asked what it would involve and would he have his picture in the programme? He'll go far!" says Andrew.

Andrina jokes that she hopes starring with mum and dad in Brassed Off may put their son off being an actor, because he will be "seeing what it really is like".

"On the other hand," says Andrew, "We thought how many kids would ever have the chance of acting on the professional stage with their parents."

Brassed Off, York Theatre Royal, September 6 to 25. Box office: 01904 623568.

Updated: 15:43 Thursday, August 26, 2004