Brassed Off - Plot

Plot

Gloria (Tara Fitzgerald) has been sent to her old hometown of Grimley to determine the profitability of the pit for the management of British Coal. She also plays the flugelhorn brilliantly, and is allowed to play with the local brass band, made up of miners from whom she must conceal her purpose. She renews a childhood romance with Andy (Ewan McGregor), which soon leads to complications. It is later revealed during a confrontation between Gloria and the management of the colliery that the decision to close the colliery had been made two years previously, and that this was to have gone ahead regardless of the findings of her report; the report simply being a P.R. exercise to placate the miners and members of the public sympathetic to their plight.

The passionate band conductor, Danny (Pete Postlethwaite), finds he is fighting a losing battle to keep the rest of the band members committed. His son Phil (Stephen Tompkinson) is badly in debt and becomes a clown for children's parties, but fails to prevent his wife and children walking out on him. As Danny, (who is earlier seen coughing coal dust into a handkerchief) collapses in the street and is hospitalised from pneumoconiosis or a similar disease, Phil, who is later revealed to be struggling with the guilt of having voted to take a lump sum rather than fight the closure of the colliery, has a breakdown while entertaining a group of children as part of a harvest festival in a church. Saying he doesn't know much about harvest festival, he offers to tell a story about God, which descends into a foul-mouthed satire about how the Tory Party was created (having been informed there was a surplus of bodies but no brains, hearts and vocal cords, God gave instructions to "Sew 'em up anyway. Smack smiles on their faces and make them talk out their arses.") then, after being asked to leave, and being told "May God forgive you." gestures towards the effigy of Jesus on the cross and reels off a list of perceived injustices, asking "What the bloody hell's He playing at?" before parting with "You've been great. My name's Coco the Scab." Later (in one of the film's darker moments) he attempts suicide by trying to hang himself from the girders of one of the colliery's winding towers. He is spotted, still in his clown costume, by two security guards who, it is assumed, save him. Danny, lying in a hospital bed, notices Phil's clown shoes as he is pushed by the door to his ward on a trolley. While talking in the hospital, Phil reveals to Danny that in light of the colliery's closure, the band has decided not to continue playing.

With the intention that it will be their last performance, the band, (in full uniform, and wearing their miner's helmets and cap lamps) play "Danny Boy" late at night outside the hospital. Andy, having pawned his tenor horn, whistles along with his hands in his pockets. After they finish, they all switch off their lamps.

As the colliery itself is finally closed, the band finds success in the national brass band competition. Andy wins his tenor horn back in a game of pool, and having forgiven Gloria, after she gives them the money she was paid to compile the report, (saying she doesn't want it because it's "dirty money") the band travel to the final at the Royal Albert Hall in London, (Birmingham Town Hall was used to film these scenes) where they are amused by the woman on the P.A. system in the dressing room's inability to pronounce colliery, with an older band member remarking "I bet she's glad the bugger's closed." Before departing, Phil leaves a note for Danny, which is found on the bed by a nurse along with Danny's pajamas the next morning. The note simply says: "WE'RE GOING!" Danny arrives, in uniform, just in time to see the band win the competition with a stirring rendition of "The William Tell Overture", during which Phil notices his wife and children are in the audience. Danny refuses to accept the trophy stating that it's only human beings that matter and not music or the trophy and that "...this bloody government has systematically destroyed an entire industry. OUR industry. And not just our industry— our communities, our homes, our lives. All in the name of 'progress'. And for a few lousy bob". However, despite this moving gesture, another band member takes away the giant cup with a typical Yorkshire "Don't talk so bloody soft". The film ends with Andy and Gloria kissing passionately on the upper deck of an open topped bus travelling through London, while the rest of the band play Land of Hope and Glory conducted by Danny.