{"id":632924,"date":"2026-06-11T11:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T11:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/632924\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T11:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T11:05:09","slug":"they-kissed-and-the-audience-roared-the-new-musical-about-gay-activists-and-striking-miners-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/632924\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018They kissed, and the audience roared\u2019: the new musical about gay activists and striking miners | Theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"

The National Theatre\u2019s new summer musical is all about real people, but here\u2019s a strange feeling \u2013 many of them are literally sitting around me tonight. In a buzzy, early preview for Pride: The Musical at Cardiff\u2019s Sherman theatre, there\u2019s Reggie Blennerhassett and Ray Aller, a couple who have been together for 44 years, wearing T-shirts printed with the poster for a notorious 1984 fundraising gig they helped organise. Its name? Pits and Perverts.<\/p>\n

Si\u00e2n James watches her younger self dance at an LGBTQ+ club in Soho, while retired tailor and actor Jonathan Blake is recast on stage in a glitzy robe and kaftan, performing a Broadway-style showstopper. \u201cMy words coming out of his mouth as he sang!\u201d Blake shakes his head more than four decades later. \u201cI was utterly floored!\u201d<\/p>\n

Twelve years ago, Dominic West danced on tables as Blake in the 2014 Golden Globe- and Bafta-nominated British film Pride<\/a>, which told the story\u00a0of the London-based activist group, Lesbians and Gays Support the\u00a0Miners (LGSM), and the members of the Neath, Dulais and Swansea Valley colliery community whom they\u00a0supported financially during the \u00a01984-1985 miners\u2019 strike. Pride: The Musical now adapts this film, melodiously, from screen to stage, revealing how two outwardly very\u00a0different communities challenged prejudices, fought against\u00a0the government and made lifelong friendships.<\/p>\n

\u201cPride\u2019s always felt to me like a\u00a0romantic comedy between two ostensibly hostile entities, who eventually become soulmates,\u201d says Matthew Warchus, director of both the original film and the new musical (as well as being the outgoing artistic director of the Old Vic theatre, and director of blockbuster film and stage adaptations of Matilda). Having grown up in the North Yorkshire mining village of Drax with a half-Welsh mother, he fondly recalls getting writer Stephen Beresford\u2019s original script \u2013 and how it \u201cstraight away\u201d felt like a musical.<\/p>\n

Why? \u201cThere\u2019s something about Pride\u2019s emotional heart on its sleeve that made it perfect \u2026 and a musical felt like a lovely, social way of appreciating the story, to hear the\u00a0audience as part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cause for thought \u2026 How the LGSM were depicted in the 2014 film Pride, starring George MacKay (front). Photograph: Nicola Dove\/Allstar<\/p>\n

Beresford, who also worked on the original film with Warchus, first heard of LGSM\u2019s story in the early 1990s through an old boyfriend. He discovered how it was formed in July 1984, a month after the group\u2019s leader, Mark Ashton, decided to collect money for the miners at that year\u2019s Pride march in London. Ashton explained why in an evocative 1986 short documentary, All Out! Dancing in Dulais (which you can still see on YouTube<\/a>): \u201cSo that one community could give solidarity to the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

But until Neath, Dulais and Swansea Valleys Miners\u2019 Support Group answered its call, LGSM struggled to find communities that\u00a0weren\u2019t blinded by prejudice, despite the poverty they faced. Pride:\u00a0The Musical\u2019s previews have reminded Beresford how radically British attitudes have changed since\u00a0the late 20th century. \u201cIn my 20s,\u00a0I can remember any gay content on stage getting gasps or a laugh, because people were uncomfortable. Last night, when the kiss happened\u201d \u2013 he\u2019s referring to a gorgeous moment in act two \u2013 \u201cthe whole audience roared their approval.\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markWhen I watch the musical, I don\u2019t feel that it\u2019s about me. I sit there and think about all the people no longer with us<\/p>\n

Musical moments are also vital in Pride\u2019s origin story. The December 1984 Pits and Perverts gig, headlined by Bronski Beat in north London\u2019s Electric Ballroom, was LGSM\u2019s biggest fundraiser, raising an astonishing \u00a35,500 for the miners, out of a total of \u00a322,500 (the equivalent of more than \u00a370,000 today). Rousing folk singing in the Onllwyn Welfare Hall, captured beautifully on film, is also translated to the stage, led by Mared Williams, while the musical\u2019s team of composers (the Tony award-winning Christopher Nightingale, alongside Josh Cohen and DJ Walde) contribute genre-spanning compositions including punky pop, ballads, disco and Broadway-style torch song.<\/p>\n

A new composition, Light Perpetual, also explores the raw grief and horror of that time, when the impact of the Aids epidemic was starting to hit the tabloid press. During its performance, I see Ray Aller, his head on Blennerhassett\u2019s shoulder, in tears. \u201cThe film of Pride was incredible,\u201d he says, sitting in the\u00a0green room with his partner, as well as Jonathan Blake and Si\u00e2n James. \u201cBut\u00a0there\u2019s something about the musical \u2013 it\u2019s almost like you\u2019re back there. It\u2019s very real.\u201d<\/p>\n

James \u2013 a young mother who helped welcome LGSM to the village in 1984 \u2013 nods. \u201cWhen I watch the musical now, I don\u2019t feel that it\u2019s about me. I sit there and think about all the people no longer with us, and how this is a testament and document of their lives.\u201d This includes Mark Ashton himself, who died of Aids at 26 in 1987, and Cliff, an older, quieter member of the mining community, played by Bill Nighy in the film, who later came out.<\/p>\n

Beam team\u2026 The cast of the new Pride musical gather for rehearsals. Photograph: Manuel Harlan<\/p>\n

The musical also makes Blake feel \u201clike I\u2019m absolutely there\u201d. One of the first people in the UK to be diagnosed with HIV in October 1982, he has been on anti-retroviral therapy since 1997, and is a sparky, healthy 76. He joined LGSM after meeting boyfriend Nigel Young in 1983, who ran London\u2019s Gay\u2019s\u00a0the Word bookshop; they remained a couple for life (Young died in 2022). \u201cMeeting Nigel, who was so politically active, changed my life. LGSM gave me the best kind of distraction therapy, and so many delights,\u201d Blake says.<\/p>\n

Pride: The Musical is also very funny \u2013 a bit rude, a bit blue, but still full of heartwarming jokes (including the classic from the original about lesbians and vegetarians \u2013 if you know it, you\u2019ll love it). When the film was being made, James was worried about\u00a0how \u201cthe Welsh are so often made to look like silly billies \u2013 but that didn\u2019t happen to us, which is the thing I\u2019ve been most grateful for over the last 12 years\u201d. Politically empowered by her role during the strike, James served as MP for Swansea East from 2005 to 2015, and she tells me she\u2019s often approached by people moved by\u00a0the original film.<\/p>\n

This includes a young, gay woman who watched it with her grandfather, once a striking miner, too. \u201cShe told me that he cried at the end of it, then said: \u2018It\u2019s only a beginning, but I\u2019m starting to understand.\u2019\u201d She smiles. \u201cIsn\u2019t that the power of the story?\u201d James also mentions today\u2019s grandchildren mentioning others of their generation coming out. \u201cThat wouldn\u2019t have happened when my children were young, so we\u2019ve come a long way \u2013 although we\u2019ve still got a\u00a0long way to go.\u201d (This year, trade unions banded together to fundraise for Durham Pride, after the Reform-led council cut funding for the event.)<\/p>\n

At the extraordinary Pride march in\u00a0London in June 1985, the LGSM-funded Dulais Valley miners\u2019 minibus arrived in Hyde Park, and Dulais Valley mining representative Dai Donovan led the whole parade. I notice him in the row in front of me in the second act: now white-haired at 78, his fist held gently against his mouth, as his character sings a song about resilience in the final days of strikes.<\/p>\n

I speak to him after the standing ovations. How did he find the musical? \u201cVery moving,\u201d he says gently. \u201cTonight really articulated the pressures faced by gay people \u2013 and more people finding out about that was the one good thing that came out\u00a0of the miners\u2019 strike.\u201d Four months\u00a0after Donovan led the parade, the Labour party cemented its support for gay rights at its annual conference. Three years later, it fiercely opposed section 28. In government in 2004, it\u00a0set up the Civil Partnerships Act, which led to same-sex marriage being enshrined in law.<\/p>\n

It speaks volumes that the LGSM and the miners\u2019 community have been \u201ctirelessly\u201d supportive for these previews, Warchus adds, even when rehearsals \u201cwere a bit rough, and we told them not to come\u201d. Beresford laughs. \u201cThey came anyway. They\u2019re basically ungovernable.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Warchus doesn\u2019t mind. \u201cWe really wanted to start it in Wales, so\u00a0that first early preview night \u2026\u201d He\u00a0exhales. \u201cYou can\u2019t print this without me sounding obnoxious, but\u00a0it was one of the highlights of my\u00a0life. Having them there was really precious, for us to be the custodians of\u00a0their story, and for them to feel it was theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pride: The Musical<\/a> is at the National Theatre: Dorfman, London, to 12\u00a0September.<\/p>\n

This article was amended on 11 June 2026. An earlier version incorrectly said that Stephen Beresford had worked on the Matilda adaptations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The National Theatre\u2019s new summer musical is all about real people, but here\u2019s a strange feeling \u2013 many…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-632924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}