Boff Whalley’s “musical comedy” was originally commissioned, to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1984-5 miners’ strike, by the trade union Unite, which also supports this revival. Set in a pit village, defined by “pit, church, corner shop and supermarket”, We’re Not Going Back follows the progress of events – struggles for survival, battles with intransigent authorities, media misrepresentation – through the lives of three sisters (a sly glance towards Anton Chekhov’s 1901 play).
Churchgoing Olive (Victoria Brazier) and livewire Mary (Stacey Sampson) are both miners’ wives; 18-year-old Isabel (Claire O’Connor) is dating a police cadet. Their stories are an amalgamation of fiction and of people’s memories, shared with Red Ladder theatre company. Early on in the strike, Olive sits alone beside a brazier (represented by an upturned lampshade, repurposed from the opening scene, a deft, agitprop metaphor). “What are you doing?” asks Mary. “Minding the picket line,” replies Olive. “Where are the men?” “Off holding a meeting to discuss whether to allow women on the picket!”
Over the months that follow, everything changes; there will be no going back. The women move from domestic to public spheres: Isabel finds strength to take sides; Olive organises with Women Against Pit Closures and discovers the limits of the vicar’s Christian charity. Mary, forced to find a job, also finds a voice; speechifying, she sings, is “like talking, only loud”.
The songs (mostly original and accompanied on keyboard by musical director Beccy Owen, who also plays a fourth character, Sue) are perfectly pitched, musically and dramatically, reprised by the original cast under the direction of Elvi Piper (taking over from 2014’s Rod Dixon). Harmony is key. Dissonant confrontations between the sisters never conclude in rupture. Whalley (writer, lyricist and composer) uses music to imply that healing can be implicit in division: after Olive has delivered her eyewitness account of the Battle of Orgreave, the women’s voices softly intertwine even as they defiantly sing: “this is war”.
• We’re Not Going Back is touring to Sheffield (25 March), Hull (26th), Manchester (27th) and Leeds (28-29th), with an extra performance in Ripon on 6 July
