Queens of the Coal Age

Royal Exchange

Until July 28

IT is a hundred years since women were granted the vote — albeit partly — 50 years since the women of the Ford Dagenham Plant demanded equal pay, so it is only apt that Queens of the Coal Age ,penned by Maxine Peake, gets its stage premiere in 2018.

First performed on radio, this is Peake’s first play for the Royal Exchange, where she is an associate artist.

The moving, humourous, poignant, powerful and at times haunting play celebrates the role ordinary women played during the pit closures.

Inspired by the story of Annie, Elaine, Dot from Farnworth, and Lesley who staged a sit-in at Parkside Colliery pit in 1993, which was earmarked for closure, the play shows the determination of the four members of Woman Against Pit Closures to dig deep protect their community in the face of ‘progress’.

We enter the pit with them as the stage is transformed into a mine, which through lighting, music and striking choreography depicts it as a strong powerful machine around which communities are built.

Lit mainly by the head torches, and with skilful direction by Byrony Shanahan and the outstanding acting — by Kate Anthony, Jane Hazelgrove, Danielle Henry and Eve Robertson — means the audience are no longer simply onlookers but are with them in the mine, sharing their laughs, fears and poignantly a greater understanding of why they took this action, which on the outside may have seemed futile. But powerfully it is a symbolic show of the strength of feeling to protect their families now and the community for generations to come. Their sit-in made headlines in this paper, which also makes an appearance on the stage.

The human toll of the miners’ strike is revealed through the lives of these very ordinary women who were forced to empower themselves.

Their passion contrasts with an almost modern day defeatist attitude as that portrayed by Michael, played by Connor Glean.

Politics aside this is a heartwarming and uplifting story of four women — very different in character— who took a stand against the destruction of their communities, the foundations of which were laid by the miners.

Questions are explored, fears are highlighted and audiences are left with plenty of food for thought at the end of the play but not at the expense of celebrating these four wonderful women who for the first time we are able to share their experience.

Saiqa Chaudhari