Pride review: Loving musical adaptation of the feel-good film

Not every story needs to be turned into a musical, but Matthew Warchus’s 2014 film Pride seemed to be crying out for it. Based on the true story of a London gay and lesbian group that raised money for the south Wales village of Dulais during the 1984 Miners’ Strike, it’s been lovingly transposed to the stage by Warchus, with a book and lyrics by original writer Stephen Beresford and music by Christopher Nightingale, Josh Cohen and DJ Walde. The result is hugely charming and affecting, if imperfect.

After a hedonistic night in his flat near Bloomsbury’s Gay’s The Word bookshop, young activist Mark (Jhon Lumsden) has an epiphany. The same people who hate homosexuals also hate the miners: ergo, they should stand together. He assembles a rag-tag gang of four gays (“and one lesbian” as Courtney Stapleton’s Steph wearily and repeatedly points out) and starts raising money for a valley village chosen pretty much at random. When they deliver the cash there’s a chalk-and-cheese clash of cultures before shared values and humanity assert themselves. The personal is political, and vice versa.

The Cast of Pride at the National Theatre (Manuel Harlan)

There are superb songs here that expand and illuminate the story: I Miss Disco, in which Samuel Barnett’s flamboyant Jonathan struts his stuff in front of a bemused Welsh crowd; the stirring standard Bread and Roses; the beautiful solo Ordinary sung by Sarah Pugh’s local organiser Siân. You Might as Well Live, also performed by Barnett’s HIV-positive Jonathan, is done as a Busby Berkeley tap extravaganza to open the second act, complete with feather fans and a gold playsuit. (You didn’t get that from Dominic West, who played Jonathan on film.)

The juxtaposition of the raucous Bloody Good Night Out, in which the women of Dulais witness the delights of Soho’s gay scene, with Light Perpetual, about the coming Aids crisis, is bold and moving. There are also a few duds like the dour The Enemy Within and a couple of songs that sound like place-holders.

Narratively speaking, on stage Pride has a great middle but a weak beginning and end. Even after the pre-show montage of photos (Richard Branson, the pre-shaved Madonna etc) there’s a bit of necessary “hey kids” scene setting, reminding us that the early 80s was a time of “fingerless gloves, Rubik’s Cubes” and gay-bashing.

As the mining community and the London “perverts” (they choose to own the tabloid label) learn to respect each other, individuals grow. The tale can be charted through the coming to maturity, and coming out, of Lewis Corney’s Bromley, who isn’t initially sure he’s entirely homosexual. (“Bi now, gay later?” as Jordan Shaw’s Reggie wittily puts it.) Bromley’s apotheosis, I’m Into Guys, has the deathless couplet: “Yes I’m sure so save the sermon/I like cock and Ethel Merman.”

Jhon Lumsden (Mark), Matthew Durkan (Mike) and Chris Jenkins (Gethin) in Pride at the National Theatre (Manuel Harlan)

But like the film the musical necessarily ends on a diminuendo: the characters mill about the stage, filling us in on what came after. The strike was smashed. Aids laid waste to a generation. We’re told that Sian became the first female MP for Swansea and that gays and lesbians eventually won equal rights with heterosexuals in the UK. But these wins feel somewhat hollow at a time when progressivism is under attack worldwide.

Warchus’s production has a can-do, scratch-built 80s vibe, all hand-painted protest banners, dungarees and Doc Martens, with the band atop Bunny Christie’s scaffolding set. Lumsden is a charismatic, impetuous Mark, balanced by Matthew Durkan’s more solid and earnest Mike. Barnett knowingly steals every scene he’s in. Sarah Pugh is terrific as Siân, with sterling comic support from Gillian Elisa as Gwen and Kirsty Malpass as Hefina. The platonic fascination between Gwen and Stapleton’s Steph is one of the show’s many delights.

Pride is mostly a feel-good hit, with a lemony sting in its tail, and its initial run has sold out. It’s been produced at the National by Warchus and Beresford’s P&P Productions, and clearly the hope is for it to have a longer, commercial life. I can’t quite see it in big, West End theatre in its current form: it’s too quirky, too left field. Perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe the musical theatre audience will take to a tale of gay pride like ducks to water.

To Sept 12, nationaltheatre.org.uk