Folk musician Martin Green has been immersed in brass band music for the last three years

Musician and composer Martin Green has collaborated with the Whitburn Band on his theatre project Keli. Picture: Sandy Butler

The National Theatre of Scotland is to mark the 40th anniversary of the miners' strikes with the premiere of a new play exploring the enduring links between former mining communities and modern-day brass bands.

One of Scotland's leading folk musicians is leading the creation of a stage play inspired by conversations he had across Britain while making a radio documentary about fiercely-contested brass band competitions.

Billed as a "gripping show about community, creativity and the power of music," Keli will focus on a talented but troubled teenage band player who feels increasingly trapped in the former mining town she is growing up in.

Martin Green's stage show Keli will bring the worlds of brass band music and theatre together. Picture: Sandy Butler | Sandy Butler/National Theatre of Scotland

Real-life brass band players will perform in the stage show - one of several projects Martin Green has pursued during a growing fascination with brass band music since he stumbled across a mass gathering of bands at the Scottish Mining Museum two miles from his home in Pathhead, Midlothian.

Keli was originally commissioned as an audio drama from the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh, which will host the world premiere of the new stage show in May, with other performances planned in Stirling, Dundee, Perth and Glasgow.

Green will be reviving a collaboration with the Whitburn Band, in West Lothian, which was involved in the audio drama and an early work-in-progress version of the play, which was staged in a one-off show at the Lyceum in 2022.

A number of Whitburn musicians also joined Green to perform specially-composed music he wrote for the audio drama and a new album at the Tramway in Glasgow as part of the Celtic Connections festival this year.

Green, who has played accordion with the award-winning folk trio Lau since 2005, has been immersed in the worlds of brass band music for the last three years.

He said: "I started burrowing deep into the world of brass bands for the Radio 4 series (Love, Spit and Valve Oil).

"As a piece of fiction, Keli really came out of the richness of that world. It has all these brilliant, wonderful, nurturing people, who are also deeply competitive and have petty rivalries. Who wouldn't want to write a play set in that world?

"Part of my interest was about the number of musicians who are involved in it, but it was also about the astonishing quality of those musicians, who are not that visible in the professional music circuit, because they live in a different eco-system.

"I felt there were so many parallels to folk music. It's music for working working people, it's socially based and isn't financially-motivated. It's a very different noise to folk music, but it is overwhelmingly beautiful. I had a real desire to make some music with these brilliant people."

After working on the documentary series, Green wrote a whole album of brass music, which was recorded with players from some of the UK's leading bands, and then collaborated with the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain on live performances.

He said: "It was amazing to hang out with these teenagers who were all so dedicated and so good.

"When I was a teenager, I also spent my time in this niche, uncool world of folk music, which you don't necessarily talk about when you're at school.

"I really felt that from these young brass band players who are in their weird little niche. These are completely dedicated to something which seems so old-fashioned. They have never seen mining themselves.

"It all made me think about what it's like being a teenager in a post-mining town. My own kids go to school in Dalkeith, which has a history of mining.

"Mining towns across the UK are pretty similar in their infrastructure, their community ideals and what has been left behind after the industry was ripped out of them. Part of what is left behind is these awesome brass bands."

Green's show is expected to reflect on the legacy in communities of not just the mining industry but the bitter disputes of the mid-1980s and the campaigns to have criminal convictions overturned, which won the support of the Scottish Government.

He said: "These are people who carried convictions for four decades in places where the primary industry was removed and unemployment was very high. A large number of people had their lives hugely affected. It was about much more than a mine closing down."

The NTS show focuses on the fictional story of a 17-year-old horn player who is increasingly struggling to cope with the realities of "small-town life" away from playing music.

"Keli is really an amalgam of various brilliant, beautiful, slightly troubled, fiery-tongued radges that I've had the pleasure of hanging out with. Some of them have been brass band players, but not all of them.

"Some of them have been people that have found that their creative outlet has been the only relaxing place in their life and the only bit of the universe that they can control.

"Keli has got a bit of wisdom in her, but she is quite rude to people, as she can't not tell them the truth. I find those sorts of people quite inspiring when I meet them.”

Green said there would be elements of “magical realism,” in the show, which will see both an actress and a real-life flugelhorn player portray the main character.

Keli will be directed by Bryony Shanahan, with Admiral Fallow music and singer Louis Abbott involved in the production as musical director.

He added: “The method of storytelling will be quite magical. Music is so useful for that as it’s quite similar to magic, I think.

“It’s not a musical - there are no songs in it. But it is a very musical show.

"Keli was originally commissioned during lockdown as an audio drama for the Lyceum, but part of the contract also involved thinking about it as a future stage play. It's amazing that it is now being made with the National Theatre of Scotland. It's like a little dream.”

New Scottish stage show exploring 'magical' world of brass bands to mark 40th anniversary of miners' strikes

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