Preview: PItmen Poets on tour

 

THE PITMEN POETS

Return for National Tour

Billy Mitchell  ·  Bob Fox  ·  Jez Lowe

 

Three giants of the contemporary folk world are coming home. Billy Mitchell, Bob Fox and Jez Lowe — the trio who collectively embody decades of North East musical heritage — are reuniting as The Pitmen Poets for a new national tour. And for audiences across the region, this summer brings a rare cluster of opportunities to witness one of the most authentic and deeply rooted shows on the UK folk circuit.

The show celebrates the songs, stories and living heritage of North East England's coalfield communities — music that carries the weight of history without ever losing its warmth, wit and humanity. From late June through to mid-July, nine North East venues will host this remarkable reunion, taking the tour from the market town of Barnard Castle all the way to the Fire Station in Sunderland, where it concludes.

THE STORY BEHIND THE SONGS

At the heart of The Pitmen Poets lies the work of Tommy Armstrong — the legendary pitman songwriter of the nineteenth century whose Pitmatic dialect verses captured the lives, humour and heartbreak of mining communities with a directness and compassion that still resonates today. Armstrong wrote not just about the daily grind of underground work, but about disasters, strikes, solidarity and the wry dark comedy of working life. He is, in every sense, the godfather of the North East folk tradition.

The trio do not simply mine Armstrong's legacy — they build upon it. Alongside his material, Mitchell, Fox and Lowe perform their own compositions: songs about coal, strikes, the weight of community and the communities that grew up around the pits. The result is a concert that moves fluently between past and present, between grief and laughter, and between the personal and the collective.

 

The project began some fifteen years ago when Bob Fox was invited to create a concert celebrating North East culture at London's Kings Place. With little rehearsal, the musicians took to the stage and simply let the show find its own shape. What emerged was so natural, so alive with shared experience and instinctive musicianship, that the ensemble has returned to it again and again ever since.

 

"It's a night of music, storytelling and humour that celebrates the culture we come from."

— Jez Lowe

 

THE PERFORMERS 

 

Billy Mitchell

One of the most distinctive voices the North East has produced, Billy Mitchell spent much of the 1970s touring Europe with folk-rock pioneers Jack the Lad before becoming one half of the hugely popular duo Maxie & Mitch. Then in 1996 came the call that cemented his place in regional legend: he was invited to front Lindisfarne, one of the most beloved bands Tyneside has ever produced, remaining with them until their retirement in 2003.

In recent years Mitchell has toured The Lindisfarne Story alongside drummer and fellow alumnus Ray Laidlaw, keeping the spirit of that extraordinary band alive for both lifelong fans and new audiences. On stage with The Pitmen Poets, his warmth and natural authority as a performer give the show much of its emotional grounding.

 

Bob Fox

Bob Fox is, by wide consensus, one of Britain's finest interpreters of traditional song — a singer whose voice carries both technical mastery and an instinctive feel for the emotional truth at the core of a lyric. Twice nominated as Folk Singer of the Year at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, he is a fixture on the national and international circuit whose reputation reaches well beyond the folk world.

Fox's career took a remarkable theatrical turn when he was cast as the Songman in the National Theatre's acclaimed production of War Horse. He performed in the West End production and subsequently in touring productions across the UK, Ireland and South Africa — bringing the same qualities of storytelling and presence that define his concert work to one of British theatre's most celebrated recent productions.

 

Jez Lowe

Jez Lowe was born in Easington Colliery, County Durham — a colliery village that has given him not just a subject but a perspective, a way of listening to the world and transforming what he hears into song. Over a career spanning around twenty albums, he has built an international reputation as one of folk music's great storytellers: a writer whose work documents ordinary life with the care and moral seriousness of the very best social realism.

Lowe has also been a principal writer for the award-winning revival of The Radio Ballads, the landmark BBC project that pioneered a documentary-music form in the 1950s and 60s. To be a principal contributor to its continuation is to stand consciously in one of British folk's most honourable traditions — and Lowe wears that responsibility with characteristic ease and generosity.

 

 

WHAT TO EXPECT ON THE NIGHT

 

 

The Pitmen Poets is not a heritage show in the sense of something preserved in amber and gazed at through glass. This is living music, performed by three artists at the height of their powers, who share a common culture and a shared conviction that the stories of working people deserve to be told with craft, humour and honesty.

 

Expect powerful songs — many of them new or newly arranged — woven together with the kind of rich, unhurried storytelling that is increasingly rare on any stage. Expect laughter, because humour is inseparable from the tradition Mitchell, Fox and Lowe are working in. Tommy Armstrong was above all a funny man, and his heirs have not forgotten it.

 

Expect, too, an evening that earns its emotion. These are songs about real communities, real losses and real resilience — and the men performing them carry all of that in their voices and their histories. The Pitmen Poets is one of those rare shows that leaves audiences feeling enlarged by the experience: more connected to the place they live, more aware of what was built and what was lost, and more grateful that there are still artists willing to hold it all in their hands and give it back to us.

 

 

NORTH EAST TOUR DATES

June – July 2025  ·  Tickets from venues and online

DATE	VENUE
Friday 26th June	The Witham, Barnard Castle
Saturday 27th June	Customs House, South Shields
Sunday 28th June	The Glasshouse (Sage), Gateshead
Thursday 2nd July	Playhouse, Alnwick
Friday 3rd July	Queens Hall, Hexham
Wednesday 8th July	Forum, Billingham
Friday 10th July	Playhouse, Whitley Bay
Saturday 11th July	Gala, Durham
Sunday 12th July	Fire Station, Sunderland

 

Tickets available from individual venues and online