Brassy Women

It’s Lancashire in the early 1960s. The heady world of the brass band is almost entirely a male preserve. Except for the Adlington Ladies. Put together in piecemeal fashion with conductor Lucy at the helm, their aim is to beat the all-male Great Hulme Motors Band at next year’s Brass Festival, and thereby earn a van for disabled children. From an abusive father and drug problems to the humiliation of a failed relationship with a school colleague, each member of the women’s band has her own life to live outside band practice, and the trials and tribulations each one has to contend with along the way add a human touch to this charming story, laced as it is with gentle northern humour. Even their motley collection of instruments presents problems. The bass has the wrong mouthpiece and there’s a chronic lack of a drum kit (and, indeed, a drummer to play it). Is it surprising that the resourceful and long-suffering Lucy has a headache after the band’s first public concert, when even the piano turns traitor? Prejudice and unfair tactics leave this group of ladies undaunted, for they are nothing if not brazen to the end!