I am, I will admit, a bit of a musical theatre obsessive. My go-to escape night is Sing Out, Louise! at the Phoenix Arts Club in central London, where fellow fans gather around a piano to sing show tunes until 2am. Any time I’m asked for a soundcheck before podcasting I will default to the opening lines of Hamilton. I am also a left-leaning liberal who came of age (and out as bisexual) just before the Soho LGBT scene lost the last of its magic to tourism and extortionate business rates.
So it is not too much of a surprise that when my editor sent me to review Pride at the National Theatre, a musical adaptation of the 2014 film of the same name about a group of gays and lesbians in the 1980s raising money for striking miners in Wales, I adored it. As I tried to convey in the review, the history lesson it tells – of solidarity between two very different groups that have an enemy in common (Margaret Thatcher) and come to recognise the dignity of their shared struggle – feels particularly apt amid today’s political narratives that place “traditional” working-class communities in opposition to all that is “woke”. As the gay activists and Welsh miners discover, people are a lot more complicated than that.
On press night, the standing ovation was in full swing before the curtain call had even begun and I would have struggled to find an audience member not brought to tears. In part, this is down to the euphoric highs and bittersweet lows of the music (Christopher Nightingale, Josh Cohen and DJ Walde). The call-to-arms anthem “Paint the Revolution Pink” will go down in musical theatre history. But I’ve watched countless musicals with excellent scores that fail to elicit the same degree of emotional resonance. Is there something about this story, a snapshot of the not too distant past that cofounds what we think we know about how people and politics work, that manages to cut deeper?
Always happy to go the extra mile in research terms, I was back a few days later, this time with the heterosexual, right-leaning, red-trouser-wearing man I married. My husband indulges my passion for musicals but has never shared it himself. And while he’s the kind of Tory who thinks same-sex marriage is the biggest triumph of the recent 14-year period of Conservative government, his view on industrial relations in the 1980s is quite a long way from that of Pride’s hero, Mark Ashton, and probably also Stephen Beresford and Matthew Warchus, who wrote and directed the show. He was, as he pointed out in the foyer surveying other attendees, one of approximately four straight men watching the performance that night, all seemingly lured to the theatre by their wives and girlfriends.
Yet when the final chords rang out and the inevitable standing ovation came, my husband had something in his eye. And if he found it a struggle to speak immediately afterwards, the theatre was warm and had made his throat dry. He did acknowledge being “somewhat moved” by the show, later admitting that yes, OK, it was the best thing we’ve seen in years. He might not be painting any revolutions pink anytime soon, but that his personal politics didn’t map on to the script didn’t make it any less powerful. The opposite, in fact: he saw a story about empathy, resilience, human connection, and overcoming assumptions. Assumptions like that a straight man in red trousers couldn’t appreciate a beautifully written musical about the power of perseverance and shared humanity.
I, meanwhile, continue to be gripped by the ability of musical theatre as a genre to bring old stories to new audiences. That the National Union of Mineworkers was instrumental in embedding gay rights in Labour’s manifesto and ultimately driving equality legislation in the UK is not the kind of detail one learns at school. Like Alexander Hamilton before Lin-Manuel Miranda got involved, that story was at risk of being forgotten. So scoff at my obsession if you like. It’s not a guilty pleasure – it’s history.
[Further reading: Around the world in 18 summer reads]
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This article appears in the 08 Jul 2026 issue of the New Statesman, The Great Con
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