The Pitmen Painters

• Lee Hall was born in Newcastle in 1966
• He wrote Billy Elliot 
• the play covers 13 years : from 1934 to 1947 
• it is inspired by a book
• in intro he say the 'majority still feel included from what we do' 
• and that 'the art world remains disproportionately cluttered with the sons and daughters of the middle classes.'
• He talks about growing up in the 60's and 70's and being the first generation to benifit from the Labour Government of 1945 
• 'especially in education, had come of age understading that the arts were fundamental to a life full lived. '
• He says he wrote the play ( he supposes ) to 'remind myself that something really did get lost, or at least that an opportunity was missed '
• 'it is not necessarily nostalgic- for if there is something to remember, there is also something yet to be won.'

• Play is set in Ashington
• also in Northumberland, Newcaste, London and Edinburgh
• characters 
• George Brown - Union Rep
• Oliver Kilbourn- miner 
• Jimmy Floyd- miner 
• Young lad- unemployed 
• Harry Wilson- Dental Mechanic - was in WW1 so can no longer go down the pits due to his injuries 
• Robert Lyon - expert on art
• Susan Parks - does nude modelling for artists
• Helen Sutherland - rich elderly heiress 
• Ben Nicholson - famous painter at time ( does modern art) 
• all the named characters were real people - the play is based on a true story 

• Opens with statistics and slides 
• general banter
• the 'young lad' is unemployed and wants to join them- nome of them want him to stay -but Harry Wilson allows him and even pays for him to stay
• the young lad is George's nephew 
• this interaction shows that it is an exclusive group- it makes the miners feel superior over the lad 
• Art Appreciation- the men are upset/ annoyed that Lyon is not a Professor as they have asked for and paid for one
• electricity- Lyon don't realised that they wouldn't have electricity in their shed
• they 'borrow some form the girl guides next door 
• Lyon starts off by showing the men some of Titian's work - a pre raphelite painter
• the men have not heart of many of the painters Lyon mentions - which astonds him
• they had imagined something different
• Lyon is suprised that the men have never been to an art gallery before

• p27 Oliver talks about his painting 
• someone says 'that incrediable' 
• they critique each others paintaings 
• 'delgue'
• they talk about the 'meaning of art' - each giving their perspectives
• Lyon's painting is shown- Oliver is very interested and takes the class v. seriously
• Lyon is impressed by the quality of Oliver's work and the group's in general
• they debate the idea of 'good art'
• Lyon gives Oliver some art books 
• a nude lady comes ( to model for them) - their is confusion which is humourous 
• rich heiress Helen Sutherland is introduced
• she enters much to the men's suprise and looks at their paintings
• she then asks them a lot of questions
• she asks to buy Jimmy's painting
• an argument follows - does his painting belong to the W.E.A group 
• finally agree she will buy it for £3 ( worth a lot more back then)- that they will split between them and she will also buy them new paints- very generous 

• p64- firstly they unit against Lyon about paintings
• but then there is a shift in the group's dynamics - they are no longer ignorant about art/ paintings 
• they take over the presentation - they have grown in confidence
• they become 'us' and say on p72 -' we became a group' 

• aspect of tone
• humour can arise out of features such as situation, charactor language
• sucessful literary anaysis depends on the ability to distingush between  different types of humour e.g satire ( serious ) , slapstick ,fanatastic ,bizarre , exaggarating , elements of absurdity
• comic characters ( e.g Jimmy) -humous characters with inventive names
• verbal humour e.g jokes , puns ,use of irony and exaggeration
• moral viewpoint - used for conventional means e.g naughty behaviour or comic effect but we know that good will prevail or may be subversise
• for example in this play the nude model 
• contrast of reality of situation/ their optimism
• socalisim - the way today's readers would approach this book
• to a certain extent the playwright may be considered to be treating the pit miners as stupid- however he clearly conveys to the reader that the arts only seems to belong to the privilaged
• Hall uses their accent and apparent ignorance of Lyon ( how cannot understand what they are saying) as a humourous device

• What the audience might feel/ react to perforamnce
• depend on particular staging - you must considered the dramastist's purpose
• plot: is the plot being revealed or futhered?
• character : estalished or revealed ?
• relationships : between characters -are they being developed
• mood : is particular mood being created or intensified
• ideas and themes : are thematic issues being presented ?
• visual and auaral effects : is this scene spectacular, farcial , visually arresting ? 

• Discriminating application and exploration of play
• Provide a consistently  efffective arugment with textual examples
• aplies a discriminating range of concepts and terminology
• secure expression with carefully chosen language and sophisticted transitions
• Display discrimination when evauluating howe meanings are shaped in the textss 
• Show critical understanding of the writer's craft 

• Discriminating an evaluative approach 
• Deals in a discriminating way with significance and influence of contextual facotrs
• Evaluates different interpretions and alternative readings of text  and explores these confidently 

Also consider timescoping - how in this case the playwright managed to go through 13 years - how they communicated this to the audience  

• line of argument ( what is your reaction to the statement / what extend do you agree /disagree ) and why and why not 
• several views needed
• use examples
• focusing on dramatic/ literary methods - name them
• quality of writing - write clearly and fluently 
• show awarness of how writer works
• use contexts - ake clear links with relevant context to your pints
• different interpretations -enaging with the debate presented 

• Called the Workers Educational Association - WEA
• Robert Lyon - a lecturer at Armstrong College in Newcastle ( part of Durham Uni) invited to form an art appreciation class
• after a few sessions of showing them famous artists work
• he has a notion that the class members should  experiment for themselves in different techniques - they have always learnt with their hands as they are coal miners
• they start with lino-cuttings and then do weekly painting and bring in the results to crticise as a group
• soon the work is fit to be showened and discussed in public
• the Group hold first exhibition in Newcastle
• the Group soon develop its own impetus - motivation  
• their painting are Ashington-centred depicitng their surrondings and daily lives
• represented a true development ofdocumentary culture
• the men painted their own lives , testified to experiences that no one else from trained art backgrounds could understand
• honest pictures -'realism in the raw' 

• nothing else like it has happened in the world ( probably) 
• clash in play between fiction and reality
• nature /nurture
• concerns of audience - political / modern v ancient - male or female - cultural
• mannual labour -creative -what did society think at time ? 
• conflict between artist/ mining
• universal story of individuals succeding at doing something they should do
• what is art and who does it belong to 
• regional flavour of lanuage
• viewpoint- like a fable