Last Friday I saw the National Theatre production of The Pitmen Painters at the Theatre Royal in Bath. It was a complete sell out and tickets had been hard to get. The play was very warmly received and the audience reaction to dialogue and jokes about the WEA would lead to you think the Association is better known (at least to that audience) than we often think. Jokes about the WEA's 'Region Office' not wearing unauthorised changes to protocol seemed to strike a particular chord with the audience.
But it was odd to see a play about working class experience of art in a theatre like that. The play itself was more the sort of thing we used to get in community centres in the heyday of 1980's radical touring theatre that Banner is almost the last survivor - and I suppose may be seen in local venues in future years as it would suit an local or school production given the simple stage set and number of (mostly male) characters.
How does it relate to the WEA today? We still have a huge programme of creative arts - probably over 18,000 people a year across England. What struck me was the idea of a big hit play that covered some aspects of the WEA that some feel have entirely passed with time: the Art classes for the Pitmen were requested by the local branch (after an Economics tutor couldn't be found by the Region); the relationship between the tutor and the class was less than deferential and operated within a strong framework of expectations including serious education not related to work; a strong collective sense resisting and self-regulating individual advancement; serious peer criticism and support within a widening understanding of the subject as well as a strong commitment to representing the the experience of life in their place and community.
The last point was quite striking; the model that the group and tutor came up with involved agreeing a subject for the week and the students going away, producing a painting and bringing it in the next week for the group to consider and debate. I don't know how closely the script related to the actual discussion in the many years the group met but, if that model was what was happening - assisted by a tutor - then it is an important aspect of WEA provision that doesn't always happen.
The play is a great success. It's almost unbelievable to see a stage hit based on a WEA class. It's funny, thought provoking and as sentimental as the WEA itself. However, it mostly makes me think about a model of education where working class adults could decide on what they wanted to study; get a good (possibly great) tutor to work with them; set the framework for what they studied themselves together and bring work that that did between classes in to show, discuss and argue with their peers and together change their view of the world and 75 years later, our understanding of them.
Is that model still possible? Have communities and people changed too much, social structures gone, social mobility 'worked' too well? Is the WEA still able to bring together that combination of local enthusiasm, academic commitment and non-conformist teaching approaches to communities in poverty in England today?
Recent Comments