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John Godber brings legacy
of the
miners’ strikes to Gala
Shafted!
Durham Gala Theatre
Monday
15th and Tuesday 16th February
2016
Miners will take centre
stage as BAFTA Award-winning playwright John Godber brings his latest play to Durham’s Gala Theatre.
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:
For more information
about the show, which will be performed at 7.30pm each night, or to book
tickets - priced £15 or £13 for concessions - call the Gala box office on 03000
266 600, visit the venue in person
or book online at www.galadurham.co.uk.
