North East

Producer, Andy Smythe, describes his experience of meeting the group and making the film...

The Unthank sisters are most unlikely stars.

Rachel Unthank - down to earth

When you decide to make a film about a band, generally you brace yourself to face the obstructive publicity machine that surrounds them and in some cases a barrage of diva demands.

Not today – one call to Adrian, the manager of Rachel Unthank and the Winterset (he’s also Rachel’s fiancée) and he’s inviting me to their next big appointment.

A red-carpet bash?  A meeting with high-powered record executives?

No, the girls are teaching a class of 12 year-olds how to clog dance.

Mercury Prize

When I finally meet them at Rachel’s farm cottage near Corbridge, they’re sitting round an old wooden kitchen table, discussing the merits of different types of biscuit.

They offer me a coffee and then tell me all about the Mercury Prize. 

Getting nominated, and the ceremony itself, where they were suddenly running the gauntlet through a firing line of flashing paparazzi cameras.

"People were taking our photo and we’re going 'What do we do? How are we supposed to stand?!' Oh no, I forgot to breathe in!" says Becky, Rachel’s younger sister and co-lead singer.

"It’s not real though - it’s over in a flash and then you go back to your real life." Rachel adds.

The Bairns

Who’d have thought their album "The Bairns" would comfortably sit side-by-side with the work of giants like Radiohead and Robert Plant? 

Beautiful harmonies and dramatic accompaniment

More to the point, how much of the Unthanks’ global listenership actually understand a word of the Northumbrian dialect they sing in anyway?

Back in the kitchen, the girls show me a mountain of books cataloguing ancient songs that they revive on their albums. 

"We have such a rich culture in the North East of England," says Rachel.

"There’s so many songs that have come out the countryside and the mines and the sea. 

"We’ve got clog dancing and rapper sword dancing.  It’s definitely brought a lot of colour to our lives and it’s great to be able to stand up on an international platform and show what this region has."

Folk revival

Folk music in the North East and Cumbria used to be heavily politicised – protest songs were a weapon in the fight against social injustice.

But now, folk’s found a growing market with people who just like to be entertained. 

It has shifted out of spit and sawdust pubs and into swanky arts venues. 

The band’s manager Adrian McNally has his own theory: 

"In the last five or 10 years, the media has been receptive to folk music, it has been looking our way. 

"I think what people are searching for essentially from folk music is some sense of authenticity."

The show

The band invited us to film them performing at Durham’s Gala Theatre and that’s where I really understood what’s different about them.

If the songs sound haunting on a CD, they’ll chill to the core live. 

The performance is a concoction of beautiful harmonies and dramatic accompaniment.

They exchange banter in front of an audience exactly as they do round their kitchen table. 

Then there’s the bizarre sight of pianist Stef Conner playing the strings on her piano instead of the keys – not to mention Becky Unthank adding percussion beats with her high heels.

But it works, perfectly.

For the older generation of folkies it’s easy to be cynical. 

Here are these young lasses, bringing new-fangled ideas to ancient folk songs.

But then if they didn’t, me and thousands others might not have given them a listen at all.