‘It’s not about a brass band in Grimley, it’s about the universal subject of being downtrodden’ … Pete Postlethwhaite in Brassed Off. Photograph: AJ Pics/Alamy View image in fullscreen ‘It’s not about a brass band in Grimley, it’s about the universal subject of being downtrodden’ … Pete Postlethwhaite in Brassed Off. Photograph: AJ Pics/Alamy Film ‘I thought Brassed Off might be popular within a 10 mile radius of Barnsley’: the director of Andy Burnham’s favourite film on its 30-year anniversary Ahead of a live performance in the Royal Albert Hall, the writer Mark Herman explains why he’s not surprised it’s one of the new Prime Minister’s favourites and a why film like this wouldn’t get made now
Robyn Vinter Fri 2 Oct 2026 18.56 CEST Last modified on Sat 3 Oct 2026 12.55 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google I t is one of the prime minister’s all-time favourite films and has endured in the hearts of the British public since it was released in 1996. Ostensibly a story about a small town colliery band’s journey to the finals of Britain’s biggest brass band competition at the Royal Albert Hall , Brassed Off is unashamedly political.
“I think the people who went expecting a political film got the bonus of a bit of a comedy,” says its writer, Mark Herman, three decades on. “And the people who went expecting comedy got the bonus of the political message. I think anybody who went got a sort of bonus they might not have expected.
“On the face of it, a brass band film is not an easy pitch but word of mouth really rolled and suddenly it went on and on in places for months,” he recalls. “I thought it might be popular within a 10 mile radius of Barnsley for about two weeks,” laughs Herman. “So yeah, it’s amazing.”
Set in the fictional industrial South Yorkshire town of Grimley a decade after mineworkers brought themselves to destitution trying to save their livelihoods, it captures the hopelessness felt by former miners who struggled to keep themselves out of the dole queue during the slow and painful destruction of the mining industry by the Tory government.
Starring Pete Postlethwaite , Tara Fitzgerald and Ewan McGregor, it follows the Grimley Colliery Band as they await a judgment from British Coal as to whether their pit will be closed. A resounding success, Brassed Off went on to be number 85 in the BFI’s list of Top 100 British Films and spawned a popular stage play. To add to the plaudits, Andy Burnham recently named it as one of his four favourite films.
“How do I feel about that? It’s good!” says Herman. “It’s very flattering, but I’d have been more surprised if he’d have chosen Notting Hill.”
On its 30th anniversary, fiction and real life are set to collide when Grimethorpe Colliery Band – the group that inspired the film – heads to the real-life Royal Albert Hall to perform the music alongside a special screening.
The film’s success at the time was “surprising and very rewarding” but the enduring appeal, Herman believes, is because, “It’s not about a brass band in Grimley, it’s about the universal subject of being downtrodden.
“It’s really interesting hearing teens and 20-year-olds talking about the film, because it’s such an old film for them, but it really hits them. They get the message everybody got 30 years ago, because it’s still relevant and still plays.” But these films are a dying breed and Herman admits he is “fairly pessimistic” about the current state of the British film industry. “I feel like films like Brassed O…