Pitmen Painters

Hall's Pitmen Painters is a comedy drama based on the true events associated with the Ashington Group, a group of painters celebrated in the 1930s and 1940s, whose members were mostly miners and who took up painting quite accidentally, attending art classes as part of the adult education programme provided to the then workforce. Hall recognized the enormous dramatic potential of this historical situation and its protagonists and skilfully used it to speak out about the need for communication, the transforming power of art, the authentic desire to create, the triumph over class conditionality, the vigour of left-wing ideas, the relativity of success, ambition and modesty. English reviews unanimously praised Hall’s text, one of them stating: “It is a funny play that asks big questions about education, culture and the working classes without ever being patronising, stupid, boring or using the dread word inclusive". The play was staged in the Gavella Theatre by Samo M. Strelec.

“Croatian actors have also succeeded in expressing our own thing in this English story... (...) Đorđe Kukuljica finally mounted the dragon called the Main Role and delighted me to the extent that I am happy to write that we will long remember his creation of Oliver Kilbourn in Gavella’s production of The Pitmen Painters (...), here given in the translation of Tomislav Kuzmanović and directed by Samo M. Strelec.” (Tomislav Čadež, Jutarnji list)

“Hall wrote a text that manages to be both very funny and quite serious at the same time, offering an interesting illustration of the painting phenomenon that entered the chronicles of world history of art and shaped it into a drama that could not possibly be called comic, but certainly has enough comic elements for a full evening of entertainment. This is clear from the very first moment, when Dražen Kühn, one of Gavella’s greatest masters of comic character roles, appears on the stage. (...) In both Hall's play and in Gavella's production, the social, economic and political context is only a background, extracted from life, for a warm, theatrically successfully delivered human story.” (Gea Vlahović, 24express)

“This is the right moment for a story about the workforce to be told... (...) The end of the show is spiced up with The Internationale, whose meaning may elude a part of the audience as workers have long been out of this society’s focus. (...) More than convincing Franjo Dijak and Filip Križan best interpreted the role of pitmen painters, and Đorđe Kukuljica was also psychologically well nuanced...” (Denis Derk, Večernji list)

“It can be concluded that with this powerful, mighty and witty performance carrying a strong humanistic message, Gavella has rounded off the season in the best possible way, and surely, raised many questions among many viewers. (...) At The Pitmen Painters’ opening night, the audience greeted the actors and the team of authors with a thunderous and prolonged applause, thereby rewarding not only the excellent performance of the actors’ ensemble and the concept of the Slovenian director Samo M. Strelec, but also the vitality and topicality of the leftist ideas.” (Nina Ožegović, T-portal)