Mark launches LGSM - Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners - to fundraise in support of the unions, and when the headquarters refuse to be associated with a group labelled perverts in the press, go for a grassroots approach and find a small Welsh town happy for the support.
Mike (Matthew Durkan,) Reggie (Jordan Shaw,) Steph (Courtney Stapleton) and Bromley (Lewis Cornay) become founding members alongside Mark and bookshop owner Jonathan (Samuel Barnett,) despite the latter's Welsh boyfriend Gethin (Chris Jenkins) objecting because he's still scarred by the way he was treated in his home country when he came out. In the town itself, union chair Hefina (Kirsty Malpass) leads the charge for embracing the visitors.
Look, this is undoubtedly a fun and powerful evening with a moving message, and I can't complain about an unapologetically queer show that's sold out so far and looks likely to have a further successful life. But I did get the strong impression it's been in development ever since the film came out, and the end result seems pretty determined to stick to the original message, without engaging with or acknowledging the regression in rights since then.
Obviously the villains and horrors of the story will be those of the 1980s when the real events took place, but it feels striking to have the play end on a coda telling us where things stood 30 years later at the film's release, when in fact we're more than 40 years on and we could have been pointed to where today's frontline battles on trans rights are being fought. Forgive me if I'm not uplifted by an ending celebrating a resolution passed in the 1980s, by a Labour Party that's now the face of throwing the LGBTQ+ community under the bus.
I did have other, less political issues with the show: I can't see Nightingale, Cohen and Ward's songs troubling too many people's playlists - the catchiest number in the first act is the closer "Bread and Roses" which isn't original to this show - although unusually for a musical the second act is the stronger on standalone numbers. Also while some changes to the story and characters are inevitable, I have to mention getting a text from Andy on the way back who, though generally enjoying it, did get annoyed that the two lesbians in the film were just one in the show, but Steph still gets referred to as "my lesbians."
But there are a lot of positives as Pride still delivers a West End-worthy show along with the laughs, tears and heartwarming moments you'd expect from the film. It also somehow resists the temptation to dress one of the actors up as Thatcher for a quick gag, which must be a first for an '80s-set musical. Instead Lumsden gives us a dynamic but flawed firebrand in the lead, Malpass and Darren Lawrence as Cliff give us sympathetic heroes on the miners' side as well.
This is obviously the year that more History Boys want to join Jamie Parker with an Olivier, and after Tovey it's Barnett's turn to be the show-stealer as the group's elder statesman (he's 46 FFS, although I guess that still makes him older than Dominic West was in the film.) His "I Miss Disco" is the highlight of the first act, and he opens the second with the slow-build cabaret number "You Might As Well Live" - the comic performance's throwaway reveal of his HIV diagnosis is more affecting than some of the more po-faced tributes to those lost to the pandemic.
With a chronic case of Multiple Ending Syndrome that seems determined to give a full musical number to everything that would have been a closing credits caption in the film, it's far from a prefect transfer to the stage. It is successful at transferring the uplifting spirit of the original and has a great cast, but when celebrating people who find common ground and fight for each other's rights, it could have been braver in demonstrating what that might actually look like in 2026.
Pride by Stephen Beresford, Christopher Nightingale, Josh Cohen and DJ Walde, based on the film by Stephen Beresford, is booking until the 12th of September at the National Theatre's Dorfman (returns and rush tickets only.)
Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes including interval.
Photo credit: Manuel Harlan.
That's a very fair review. I was wondering how it would be adapted from film to theatre... In the first half I thought it was too hesitant to stand on its own but from the Disco scene onwards I thought it was more uplifting than the film. The speech by Dai had me crying at the theatre. And the ending was great. (When it did eventually come, after the false endings).
ReplyDeleteI'm reading 'How Queer Bookshops changed the world' by AJ West at the moment and the author has brilliantly researched the queer story to include everyone. Maybe the play could've included more about that and today's situation but I didn't mind. All credit to the writers, director, cast and crew for making a brilliant life changing film and equally life changing musical. (I was at the 10 year anniversary screening when countless people stood up and said how the film changed their life... I remember one young woman had moved from America to London because of it.) I felt just as moved by the musical, though it's far from perfect.
I heard people say the Cardiff run was brilliant. Tears. And sometimes it's good to look at the effect on the audience and not what's happening on the stage. I saw so many people changed by what the real LGSM/miners achieved in 1984/85 and by both versions of the story. For me, that forgives it all it's mistakes because it is a life changing piece of story telling.