Centre Stage

Based on Melvyn Bragg's stirring novel of Cumbrian rural and industrial working life, set in the first quarter of the twentieth century, The Hired Man tells the true story of one family's - Bragg's grandparents' -journey from land labourers to colliers and back to the land. Set against the background of working class ritual-whippet racing, hiring fairs, hunting, drinking bouts, union meetings-the musical brings alive that cavalcade of British history which swept us into a new century and a war to end all wars. Howard Goodall's superb score is strong in the British choral tradition-a marvellous succession of chorales, operatic duets and vigorous foot-stomping rhythms.