Brassed Off

Mark Herman's 1996 film about a colliery brass band in 'Grimley', a Yorkshire pit village whose colliery is balloted into closure while the band plays its way to the national championship. The story follows Grimethorpe's own 1992, when the colliery was named for closure four days before its band won the National Championship; the film was largely shot in Grimethorpe, and the Grimethorpe Colliery Band made up most of the on-screen band and played the whole soundtrack.

The mining history in this record

On 13 October 1992 Michael Heseltine announced the closure of 33 pits, Grimethorpe among them, in the week the Grimethorpe Colliery Band was due to play at the National Brass Band Championships. The band's own history describes the world's press descending on its bandroom at the Miners' Welfare Institute and following its coach down the M1; on 17 October, conducted by Frank Renton in Philip Wilby's The New Jerusalem, it won the championship at the Royal Albert Hall with 99 points out of 100. The colliery closed in 1993, British Coal's sponsorship of the band ended in 1994, and in the same year the European Union named Grimethorpe the poorest village in Britain.

Mark Herman, wanting to make a film about what the closures of the late 1980s and early 1990s did to mining communities, took Grimethorpe's story as his vehicle. Grimley is a thin veil for Grimethorpe, and the film is set around ten years after the 1984–85 strike, in the wave of closures before privatisation when miners voted in ballots on whether to take redundancy or send their pit to review; it refers to the miners' wives who camped at pit gates from early 1993. It was filmed in 1995, largely in Grimethorpe, with the hospital scene shot at Doncaster College and the Royal Albert Hall final at Birmingham Town Hall. The Grimethorpe band, sponsored from 1995 by RJB Mining, supplied most of the fictional Grimley band, and Herman said the band had to act as well as the actors played.

People

Mark Herman, writer and director. Pete Postlethwaite (Danny Ormondroyd, the conductor), Tara Fitzgerald (Gloria Mullins), Ewan McGregor (Andy Barrow), Stephen Tompkinson (Phil Ormondroyd). The Grimethorpe Colliery Band, conducted for the soundtrack by John Anderson; Frank Renton conducted its 1992 championship win.

Legacy today

Brassed Off opened in Britain on 1 November 1996, one of FilmFour's first major releases, and grossed about £2.1 million there. Its reputation has grown since: it is 85th on the BFI's list of the top hundred British films. The soundtrack, played by the Grimethorpe band under John Anderson with an original score by Trevor Jones, was nominated for a BAFTA and went gold in Britain and Australia. The band played at the film's world premiere at the Leeds International Film Festival, and later at the premiere of the stage version at the Crucible in Sheffield, and it still plays the score live at screenings of the film.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each tagged with how solidly it's grounded and attached to the source(s) that support it. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• The film's plot is based on Grimethorpe's struggles against pit closure, and its soundtrack was recorded by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band. (documented fact) ^1,2,3
• Grimethorpe Colliery was named for closure on 13 October 1992, and on 17 October the band won the National Brass Band Championship at the Royal Albert Hall with 99 points. (documented fact) ^1,3
• Grimethorpe Colliery closed on 13 October 1992. (unverified claim, disputed) ¹
• Grimethorpe Colliery closed in 1993, after the 1992 announcement. (documented fact, disputed) ³
• The film was largely shot in Grimethorpe in 1995; the hospital scene was filmed at Doncaster College and the Royal Albert Hall scenes at Birmingham Town Hall. (documented fact) ^2,3
• The Grimethorpe Colliery Band supplied most of the fictional Grimley band as well as playing all the music. (contemporary account) ³
• Brassed Off is ranked 85th on the BFI list of the top 100 British films. (documented fact) ²

Mines

• Grimethorpe Colliery — South Yorkshire
  The film's Grimley is Grimethorpe: its story follows the colliery's 1992 closure announcement and the band's win four days later, and it was largely filmed in the village in 1995.

Regions

South Yorkshire

Related Culture records

• Grimethorpe Colliery Band
  The band played the whole soundtrack and most of the on-screen Grimley band, and the film's story follows its 1992.

Sources

1. (secondary) Grimethorpe Colliery Band — Wikipedia
2. (secondary) Brassed Off — Wikipedia
3. (secondary) A Grimethorpe Story — Grimethorpe Colliery Band

Record created: 18 September 2026 · Last researched: 18 September 2026