Drama of the miner's strike coming to Nottingham Playhouse

The drama, the tragedy and the unbreakable spirit of a working class community fighting for its future comes to Nottingham Playhouse as Gary Clarke Company presents COAL.
Coal comes to Nottingham Playhouse next weekCoal comes to Nottingham Playhouse next week
Coal comes to Nottingham Playhouse next week

COAL commemorates the 30th anniversary of the Miners’ Strike and reflects award winning choreographer and dancer Gary Clarke’s own experience of growing up in the Yorkshire coalfields.

It is a riveting dance theatre show that takes a nostalgic but honest look at the hard hitting realities of life at the coal face, the back breaking physical graft and the impact it makes on body and soul, both underground and on the surface.

COAL is at the Nottingham Playhouse as part of a national tour on Monday 23 and Tuesday May 24, at 8pm.

Strong, powerful and emotive, COAL explores the darker underbelly of the mining industry, unearthing the true nature and body wrecking demands of a working class industry now almost completely forgotten.

It is based on years of personal research by Gary Clarke including extensive interviews with Anne Scargill - former wife of NUM president Arthur Scargill - and Betty Cook, the founders of Women Against Pit Closures. He also spent time with Chris Skidmore of the National Union of Mineworkers, Bruce Wilson, author of Yorkshire’s Flying Pickets, Barnsley historian and author Brian Elliott and Paul Winter of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign.

Visit www.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk for information and tickets.

• COAL is being performed as part of neat16 - the festival will present a selection of local, regional and European work from artists and companies in venues across the city until June 12.

Related topics: