BWW Reviews: LAND OF OUR FATHERS, Trafalgar Studios, September 11 2014

Above ground, Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party is sweeping to power, already planning an unprecedented transformation in British industry; below ground, six miners are swept into helplessness, trapped by a fall, sitting it out, waiting for rescue.

Land of our Fathers (continuing at Trafalgar Studios until 4 October) is, all at once, funny, moving, sentimental, angry, scary, sad... in other words, tremendous theatre. On a stage covered in inky dark chips and with a back wall seemingly hewn from coal itself, our boyos in the black stuff move from good-natured joshing (dare I say banter?) in a hilariously funny first half, to bleak despair in the second half, as time passes without contact.

If first-time writer Chris Urch can be criticised a little for his cookie-cutter characters, that is his only fault. He captures not just the substance of how men talk amongst themselves, but the rhythm of men's speech - the quick building of rage, the equally quick subsiding into calm. The quality of the writing in the first half allows him to get away with what would otherwise be overwrought setpiece speeches. There's a rallying call for the importance of community that makes you want to drag Nigel Farage into the stalls and force him to listen; reflections on regret over decisions taken and not taken; hopes and fears, long bottled up, released. You have to be good to penetrate my defences against sentimentality, but Chris Urch does.

Great scripts only become great scripts if the acting can live up to the words on the page - and all six men rise to the occasion magnificently. Clive Merrison's Bomber is funny and clever, a moral compass for the lads. Patrick Brennan travels furthest as Chopper, the shift deputy, a man whose secret slowly overcomes his pride as he goes stir crazy. Robert East's Hovis is beautifully rendered as an old man who has seen enough to know when to laugh and when not to, and how to do the decent thing by himself and his comrades. Kyle Rees and Taylor Jay-Davies give us two brothers, so alike in their stifled ambition, but set on different paths, both desperate to make their own way, but terrified of being apart. Joshua Price is the newby kid, the butt of jokes, until he shows that there's steel behind the sweetness. Price is still training - it's an astonishing performance from a student.

Transfers (in this case from Theatre503) can be burdened by the stars and words of praise scattered over the playbill - expectations can fail to be met. Not this time. And remember the name - Chris Urch. I expect his coal-dark play to be his springboard to the bright lights of the West End.

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