by John Finch.
Mike Pratt and Terence Brady in Brothers
Thirty-Minute Theatre at 9.50
Outside, the raucous voices of the miners as they come out of the pub into the street. Inside, the coffin stands open in the front room. In the small house the grief is subdued. The head of the family is dead, and now that his two sons have gathered for his funeral a more paralysing and insidious emotion than straightforward sorrow pervades the house. It is the deep unease of people once closely bound but now uncertain of each other's real thoughts and feelings.
Phillip, the younger son, has driven from London to the little mining town. He brings with him his wife Sheila-and a feeling of guilt at having neglected his mother and father. Phillip is also alarmed at the distance between himself and his elder brother, Arthur. Phillip has a degree, and a job in the City, but Arthur has stayed at home working at the pit with his father. The central figure in Arthur's childlike existence has now gone: his life can never be the same.
His mother, Annie, realises this and worries about what will become of him. Is the social and intellectual difference between Phillip and Arthur unbridgeable, or can they help each other?
Tonight's Thirty-Minute Theatre, Brothers, is by John Finch. He lives in Rochdale, writes scripts for Coronation Street, and was once secretary to Jacob Epstein.
