BOLTON Little Theatre brings an artistic flavour to their Forge Theatre on Saturday with the true story of The Pitmen Painters — a remarkable tale of North East miners who discovered their artistic side.

Playwright Lee Hall, perhaps best known for Billy Elliot, first uncovered this fascinating episode when reading a Guardian newspaper review of a book about the Ashington Group.

They were a little known but influential art group founded between the wars in the north east mining town of Ashington — where Hall grew up. So taken was he by the article that he bought the book and began constructing a stage play about them.

Director Sandra Simpson said: "I wanted to direct this play because it was written about real people not fictional characters.

"These men from a proud mining community around Ashington Colliery — the largest pit village in the world — were determined to put ignorance and poverty behind them."

The story is set in 1934 when jobs were like gold and sees a group of miners eager to better their education, inviting an art critic, Robert Lyon, to deliver art appreciation lectures for them.

Their growing frustration with Lyons’ style leads him to encourage them to develop their own artistic endeavours as a way of appreciating others: learning by doing – and so the Ashington Group was formed and actually lasted until 1984 with the death of the last original member.

“I actually went to visit Woodhorn Museum to see the artwork created by the original men,” said Craig Harris who plays Jimmy Floyd, "and saw some of the working conditions that the miners faced daily and recreated on canvas."

“I think we’ve all found the story of this play pretty amazing,” added Matt Seber who plays Oliver Kilbourn, "that these working men used their art to show the world what their lives were really like.”

Sandra said: "I think those miners would have been amazed that, eighty years on, a group of actors from Bolton would be recreating their lives on stage."

The Pitmen Painters runs from Saturday, March 3 – Saturday, March 10 at 7.30 with a matinee on the 10 at 2.00 pm.

Call the box office on 01204 524469 or book on line via the BLT website www.boltonlittletheatre.co.uk