A classic in embryo, this mighty play still has scope to grow. Award-winning author DM Thomas’s first foray into drama celebrates, as much as the resounding refrains of Hawker’s Cornish anthem Trelawny, the very soul of this Celtic land.
Today’s picture postcard superficiality is built on a proud and painful past. It is these rich seams that Thomas, himself a Cornishman, mines with empathy.
In a hard life, heroes gave a welcome escape from a bleak and relentless reality. Bert Solomon was one such conduit for collective euphoria. A Redruth rugby player of such sublime skill he played for England, once, scoring the winning try, before abandoning the sport for racing pigeons.
Tim English is convincing as the stoical yet stubborn sportsman, a factual icon around which Thomas orbits the fictional lives of others. John Macneill is compelling as Jack, a miner whose consuming passion is cheering at Hell Fire Corner where the pitch slopes away. Here, with the match in full swing and Solomon weaving magic, the crowd can lose itself in the moment.
Many miners like Jack had to seek work abroad, where conditions took decades off their lives - returning to their loved ones as broken men. Thomas draws a picture of a society in which mining, chapel-going, singing and rugby blend into a way of life. As well as its merit as a piece of entertainment, this play gives a potent insight into a community determined to survive and snatch happiness as best it can. Songs and hymns punctuate the production.
A cast of eight necessitates some doubling up - but with a bigger company the singing could acquire the impact of a choir. A nice touch was to invite the audience to join in a rendition of Trelawny at the end.