BRASSED Off is returning to the stage with its gritty tale of a brass band facing the closure of its colliery.

The original film was a British hit in 1996 with a cast including Ewan McGregor and Gary Fitzgerald.

A professional stage version toured successfully, and now a group of theatre companies have come together to present it across West Yorkshire.

Musicians from the City of Bradford Brass Band and BD1 will perform live during the play.

There is still almost a hundred years' worth of profitable coal in the Grimley colliery seam.

Yet the miners who stood firm throughout the 1984 strike now face a renewed redundancy ballot that threatens to consign both their livelihoods and a century of brass-band tradition to extinction.

A spokesman said: “Brassed Off captures perfectly both the resilience and despair of an era in which successive Conservative governments ripped out the heart of the community and then came back for its soul.

“This stage version retains the film's rugged humour, embattled sense of community and all those memorable lines.

“Simultaneously sad and uplifting, Brassed Off is staggeringly relevant today as the scars of wounds inflicted on Yorkshire communities during the 1984 Miners’ Strike still run deep.

“As the curtain falls, Brassed Off guarantees to bring the house down. It will give the true story of an against-all-odds struggle for the notion of community.”

The play’s director, Neil Knipe, described Brassed Off as an unbelievably important story that had become a modern folk tale of the North.

He added: “This production has all the classic lines from the film and gold old northern humour but, unlike a lot of productions, we’re making sure we highlight the deep desperation and sense of being trapped that these characters faced.”

Brassed Off is at the Carriageworks in Leeds, from September 1 to 3 (call 0113 3760318 to book tickets) and Brighouse Civic Hall on September 9 and 10 (call 01484 711835).