It’s exactly halfway through 2026 and I am going to make a bold assertion: I have just seen the show of the year. That show is Pride, the stage musical adaptation of Matthew Warchus’s 2014 hit film detailing the unlikely solidarity between the gay community and the miners during the 1984-5 Miners’ Strike.
If Paddington was the hit Brit musical of 2025, Pride proudly takes that accolade for 2026, joining the nation’s best-loved bear in a vanishingly small number of stage shows that defy the odds to be superior to their filmic origins. Warchus has developed the story wonderfully, with the characterisation of the two tight-knit communities – a London gay group and a Welsh mining village – deeper and more impactful than ever.
As Mark, the founder of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), explains, although the two are seemingly worlds apart, they in fact have much in common: both groups are “hated by” former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, the police and the tabloid press.
And then there are the songs. So glorious are the numbers – all credit to Stephen Beresford, the film’s scriptwriter who supplies the book and lyrics, and Christopher Nightingale, Josh Cohen and DJ Walde for the music – that I was desperate to purchase the album right there and then. I’ll have to be patient, although it is a mark of quality that I still find myself humming lines from several songs three days after seeing the show. The prize for lyric of the night goes to this gem, sung by a young man coming to terms with his homosexuality: “Can I make it any bolder? Give me Tristan, keep Isolde”.
