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Salt of the Earth

Author: Jean Beard

Information

Date
16th July 2012
Society
Grange Players Limited
Venue
Grange Playhouse, Walsall?
Type of Production
Play
Director
Director Paul Viles/Producer Rosemary Manjunath

A story of family life set in a Yorkshire mining village and covering the years between 1947 and 1985. No fancy set with a lot of drapes and furniture but a minimal, stark, atmospheric set with only clever lighting setting each scene. Changes in the costumes of the cast and the ageing of the characters indicated the passage of time. Just before the play began the cast walked across the stage one by one and were introduced to the audience.
The actual play began with two sisters Annie (Aimee Hall) and May (Fran Richards/Jill Simkin) talking and clever lighting then turned to the part of the set depicting miners clawling underground to work digging for coal.
The story unfolded in both dramatic and comic mood and told of May's ambitions for her son Paul (Gary Pritchard) and for his academic success. Paul's friend Tosh (Dexter Whitehead) brought most of the fun and light relief to the story. The play held the audience attention from start to finish as it covered the changing times, the danger of working in the mines, the miners' strike and the young members of the family and their friends and their desires to escape and leave the old ways of the pits and find something more glamorous and exciting. Annie became very bitter when the mines took away her husband Roy (Tomos Frater) at an early age and May's husband Harry (Roger Shepherd) struggled to keep a grip on real life despite May's obsessions with her ambitions.
The smaller parts in the play help to fill the story of the lives of the people in the village and at times it brought memories of Blood Brothers, especially the scenes between neighbours.
During the performance the audience were taken on an evening of the trials and tragedies that effect life everywhere but in particular in the mining areas of Yorkshire. A well directed play with strong characters, a good supporting cast and no weak links. Grange Players at their best.

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