I discovered they were demolished in March 2022 and Blow Down is a verbatim play about them but importantly about the surrounding community, written from interviews by Garry Lyons and directed by Tess Sneddon.
Knottingley and Ferrybridge become a representation of the not-Northern Powerhouse. Instead of getting new facilities, like the politicians have said, we see them lose their sports centre, their library, their social clubs, their livelihoods. Everything is disappearing.
It's an interesting piece with a voice from (I'd say) the 1970s. There's less health and safety, perhaps more drinking at work and certainly a time of cameraderie of the family of workers.
I could see the storytelling unfold as the lively actors told their tales, although I felt sometimes that there was a discontinuity. A story of a bipolar drummer seemed grafted into the production and his blazing red drum solo seemed to detract from the main story diverting into something else entirely. I get it about mental health, but it didn't seem to need the signposting in this piece, which had more than enough to say about neglected workers, smashed communities and so on, without the drum breaks.
However, it is still a piece which resonates exposing a savage critique of the government's empty words about these places.
Northern Powerhouse. Ignored.
