Pride review – Devastating, uplifting musical is far better than the film that inspired it

The cast of ‘Pride’ at the National Theatre - (Manuel Harlan)

Solidarity is the watchword in the new stage musical Pride, as it was in the feelgood 2014 film that inspired it. Set in 1984, during the height of the miners’ strike, the true-life story follows a group of London-based gay activists who start raising funds to support a Welsh mining community, having realised they have enemies in common (ie, Margaret Thatcher and the right-wing press).

Pride, produced by P&P Productions with the National Theatre, transcends its source material in most every way: it’s funnier, more moving, and more joyous than the film. (Both incarnations are directed by Matthew Warchus.) It also – crucially – feels more queer. My big gripe with the film was that it seemed designed with a straight audience in mind: for a tale about people living radically unconventional lives, it was stubbornly traditional in its form. Musical theatre, on the other hand, is a medium that comes pre-queered. (That’s not to say that Pride narrows its appeal: an early joke about “trade” aside, the script largely avoids the sort of less-normalised gay argot that might fly over straight heads.)