Learn all about the real history behind new musical 'Pride'

This extraordinary story about the solidarity between a queer protest group and striking Welsh miners is coming to the National Theatre.

Summary

• New musical Pride is coming to the National Theatre in summer 2026
• The show is based on real events and was previously a hit movie
• The story follows a queer protest group who raise money for Welsh miners during the 1984 strike
• It features amazing real-life campaigners such as group founder Mark Ashton

The long-teased stage musical adaptation of the acclaimed 2014 movie Pride is finally arriving in 2026, coming to the Dorfman stage at the National Theatre in the summer. The show reunites Matthew Warchus (Matilda The Musical) and Stephen Beresford (The Last of the Haussmans), the director and writer of the film respectively, to once again tell an extraordinary real-life story.

The new theatrical version of Pride will also feature songs from a trio of artists, Christopher Nightingale, Josh Cohen and DJ Walde, reflecting the range of music brought together in this 1980s-set show – along with the wonderfully unlikely group of characters, a queer protest group and Welsh striking miners, who gradually bond as they fight for their rights.

Get to know all about the real history behind this beautiful tale, and how it inspired both a film and now a major stage musical.

Book Pride tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk.

What is Pride about?

The 2014 film Pride follows closeted student Joe Cooper, who accidentally joins a Pride march in London and meets passionate gay activist Mark Ashton and his queer friends Mike, Steph, and older couple Jonathan and Gethin, who own bookshop Gay’s the Word.

Inspired by a TV news report about the 1984 miners’ strike, Mark decides that their group should raise money for them, seeing parallels between how they are being mistreated by the establishment and the prejudice that the queer community faces. He forms Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM).

The group eventually travels up to a small mining village in Wales to meet the people they’ve been helping – although there is plenty of suspicion initially. But they soon hit it off with the miners’ spokesman Dai, volunteer (and clearly talented campaigner) Siân, committee member Hefina, and her poetry-loving brother Cliff.

Both groups face fierce opposition: from the government and the police, from homophobic objectors, and, in the case of Mark and his friends, the shadow of AIDS. Yet they find strength in solidarity. Meanwhile Joe goes on a journey of self-discovery as he stands up for himself and his community.

Are the Pride characters real people?

Many of them are, yes! The extraordinary Mark Ashton, who was born in Northern Ireland, really was a brilliant campaigner in the 1980s who, with his friend Mike Jackson, founded a group called LGSM in 1984. LGSM made astonishing fundraising efforts, donating more money than any other group: £11,000 by that December. They did also have an eye-catching bus emblazoned with the group’s name, as depicted in the film.

Beresford first came across this unlikely but incredibly touching story when he was at RADA, and, 20 years later, eventually managed to get it commissioned as a film. It was then that he met another key figure in the story: Jonathan Blake, one of the first people to be diagnosed with AIDS in the UK, who miraculously survived. Jonathan is a real-life proud founding member of LGSM.

There are more amazing true figures on the Welsh side of the tale. Hefina Headon really was a tireless activist and community leader, while Siân James really did begin as a young wife and mother, and then was transformed by the strike. She subsequently attended Swansea University and served as a Labour MP from 2005-15.

There is mention in the film of famous political figures on opposing sights of this fight: then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and trade unionist Arthur Scargill, president of the National Union of Mineworkers.

Most of the other characters are inspired by people from the time, rather than based on specific individuals, and the invention of Joe is crucial to act as a point-of-view character for the audience: we are entering this unknown world along with him, and his is the biggest dramatic arc that we can follow and invest in through the show.

Did the events in Pride really happen?

The main ones absolutely did, such as LGSM raising money to support Welsh striking miners, and then getting to know the community, during the record yearlong strike of 1984-5. LGSM eventually grew to have 11 different chapters, but we focus on the original London one in the story.

The main meeting place for LGSM, Jonathan and Gethin’s Gay’s the Word bookshop in Bloomsbury, is a real place: in fact it’s the oldest LGBTQ+ bookshop in the UK, originally founded in 1979, and still going strong.

One unforgettable scene in the film sees Jonathan (played by Dominic West) showing off his best disco moves at the miners’ welfare hall – to the delight of the women, and the bafflement of the non-dancing Welsh men. That was inspired by a real photo of Jonathan dancing up a storm.

The story also examines the tensions within LGSM, specifically the concern from lesbian members about a lack of representation. As we see in the film, in real life some women broke away to form a separate group, Lesbians Against Pit Closures.

One thrilling scene in the film features a massive benefit concert thrown by LGSM to help the increasingly despairing mining community. That really did take place in December 1984 at Camden’s Electric Ballroom, cheekily called Pits and Perverts – reclaiming the slurs hurled at the group by tabloid The Sun. The concert raised over £5,600.

The film ends on a triumphant note as hundreds of miners come to London to march with the queer community in the 1985 Lesbian and Gay Pride parade. Again that really did happen, and was testament to the ongoing support that the two communities showed one another in the years following this vital collaboration. For example, in 1985 the NUM voted to commit the Labour Party to support LGBTQ+ rights, and miners’ groups were outspoken critics of Section 28 (a law that banned local authorities from "promoting homosexuality" in schools).

What can we expect from Pride the musical?

It sounds like the musical will follow a pretty similar story to the BAFTA-winning film, especially with both Beresford and Warchus back at the helm, but we can expect some fun additions for this stage version too.

The biggest change will be the further incorporation of music. The film used music in a wonderfully expressive way, whether Jonathan’s disco romp to “Shame, Shame, Shame”, the use of 1980s pop bangers like “Tainted Love”, or the stirring renditions of trade union anthem “Solidarity Forever” and suffrage and labour movement anthem “Bread and Roses”.

The three artists involved with the stage show will presumably cover all those bases, plus add some extra musical theatre flair. The Tony Award-winning Christopher Nightingale’s credits include A Christmas Carol and Matilda The Musical, while Josh Cohen and DJ Walde’s work includes Some Like It Hip Hop, Sylvia, and Bacchae.

There are also plenty of juicy roles here. The film featured an all-star cast, including George MacKay, Faye Marsay, Dominic West, Andrew Scott, Imelda Staunton, Paddy Considine, Jessica Gunning, and Bill Nighy. It will be very exciting to see who succeeds them as this incredible true story is reborn as a major stage musical.

Book Pride tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk.

Main photo credit: Pride at the National Theatre (photo courtesy of the production. Inset: Pride the movie, Jessica Gunning and Imelda Staunton in Pride, Ben Schnetzer in Pride (photos courtesy of the film)