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John Godber brings legacy
of the
miners’ strikes to Newcastle
Shafted!
Newcastle Northern Stage
Tuesday
12th - Saturday 16th April 2016
Miners will take centre stage
as BAFTA Award-winning playwright John Godber brings his latest play to Newcastle’s Northern Stage in
April.
Shafted! follows the
lives of former pitman Harry and his wife Dot – played by Godber and his wife Jane Thornton - in the thirty
years after the strikes of 1984, as the pair struggle to settle into new jobs
and to rebuild their community.
Suddenly they were thrown
together, with new battles to fight and new jobs to hold down; from window
cleaning in Wakefield to running a boarding
house in Bridlington; but life would never be the same again.
Fuelled with eye-watering
honesty and true Yorkshire grit, this is a hilarious account of those whose
jobs had been taken and whose communities had been destroyed, and how they
fought back after being Shafted!
The pits may have gone
but the shifts are still seismic!
The John Godber Company
was formed in March 2011 by celebrated playwright John Godber and his wife Jane Thornton, following
John’s departure from Hull Truck Theatre after 26 years as its artistic
director.
John Godber was born the son of a miner in Upton, West Yorkshire. He trained as a teacher
of drama at Bretton Hall College, Wakefield. Whilst he was head of
drama at Minsthorpe High School, the school he attended
as a student, he won every major award at the National Student Drama Festival
between 1981 and 1983.
His plays include: Bouncers, Up ’n’ Under, April in Paris,
Teechers, Poles Apart, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Cramp, Happy Jack, September in
the Rain, Salt of the Earth, Passion Killers, Happy Families, Up ’n’ Under ll,
Gym and Tonic, Dracula, Lucky Sods, Hooray for Hollywood, Weekend Breaks, It
Started With a Kiss, Unleashed, Thick As a Brick, Big Trouble in the Little
Bedroom, Seasons in the Sun, On a Night Like This, Our House, Departures, Men
of the World, Reunion, Screaming Blue Murder, Black Ties and Tales, Perfect
Pitch, Going Dutch, Christmas Crackers and Crown Prince.
Within an extensive
career in writing and directing in TV and film, John devised the BBC Two series Chalkface,
wrote and directed The Ritz and also worked with Anthony Minghella on Grange
Hill and Phil Redmond on Brookside; his screenplay 8 My Kingdom for a Horse,
starring Sean Bean, was nominated for an Alternative BAFTA. John’s first
feature film, Up ’n’ Under, was
released in January 1998.
In 2005 he co-wrote and
directed Odd Squad for BBC Two, which was shot in Hull using local actors. Odd
Squad won two BAFTAs in the Schools Drama category and in the BAFTA Original
Writer section.
Jane Thornton’s
stage
writing credits include Say It With Flowers (Hull Truck Theatre), All the Fun
of the Fight (Theatre Royal Wakefield), I Want That Hair and Wuthering Heights (Hull Truck Theatre).
For television, she
co-wrote the BAFTA-winning Odd Squad (BBC), Bloomin’ Marvellous,
Shakers, Chalk face (BBC) and It’s Happy Hour
Again (Channel 4).
As an actor, Jane appeared in the original
theatre productions of Up ‘n’ Under,
Happy Jack, September in the Rain and April in Paris and for TV,
Coronation Street, Heartbeat, Hollyoaks and the screen plays of Up ‘n’ Under,
My Kingdom for a Horse where she played opposite Sean Bean, and Thunder Road.
Tickets:
Shafted comes to Northern Stage from Tuesday 12th - Saturday 16th April
2016, 7.30pm
Wed 13 Apr Straight from Work Performance: 6pm
Matinee Sat 16 Apr, 2pm
Tue -
Fri & Sat matineeMatinee Sat 16 Apr, 2pm
£24, £19.50, £14.50
Students/Under 21s: £12
Concessions Available
Saturday Evenings:
16 Apr - 7.30pm
£25, £19.50, £14.50
Students/Under 21s: £12
Concessions Available
Post-show
discussion: Wed 13 Apr
Recommended
age:
14+
For tickets call the box
office on 0191 230 5151, visit the
venue in person or book online at http://northernstage.co.uk/whats-on/shafted
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