And what is most remarkable is that it does not trivialise the politics of the time. The story could easily have gone awry but never belly-flops into sentimentality – its feelgood factor is earned. It is directed with finesse and has a fabulous cast (including Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton and Dominic West). You might wonder how, after the defeat of the miners, an upbeat ending could be legitimate, but this is one of the film's many achievements. I've seen it twice, laughed repeatedly, wept at the end. You might assume a romcom about striking miners and 80s gays was unlikely to be big box-office, but the same was probably said of Billy Elliot. Three years later and the film, shot in Banwen, Wales, and London, and directed by Tony-winning Matthew Warchus (responsible for Matilda the Musical, and soon to be artistic director of the Old Vic), is finished. Pride – the word could not be more charged – is his first feature film as a writer.
By the time he'd finished, Livingstone's eyes were "moist" and Beresford had secured his commission. I did think, if it is true, I'll write about it one day."Īs Beresford talked to Livingstone, he had a hunch the story's moment had come. But it was like Chinese whispers – I wasn't sure whether to believe it. "The story had become a legend in the gay community. "I first heard about it when I was at Rada." (Now 42, Beresford started out as an actor but is also author of The Last of the Haussmans, an exuberantly accomplished debut at the National in 2012). "It is a story I'd known about for 20 years," Beresford explains. The events that unfolded said a lot about what it means to be empathetic, to overcome dissent and face common enemies: Thatcher, the tabloids, the police. In a decade when a degree of homophobia was the norm, LGSM drove a couple of minibuses from Hackney Community Transport and a clapped-out VW camper van to a bleak mining town in South Wales to present their donations, uncertain what sort of welcome to expect. I n September 2010, the writer Stephen Beresford was about to leave a meeting with film producer David Livingstone when he was asked: "Is there any story you are burning to write?" "Well, there is one," he replied, hesitating at the door, "but no one is ever going to make it." He acknowledges now that this is a line you can only use once in a pitch and explains that he went on to tell the story of miners in the Dulais valley in South Wales during the 1984-5 strike – the longest in British history – and a gay and lesbian group from London that donated more money (£11,000 by December 1984) to their cause than any other fundraiser in the UK, along with a minibus emblazoned with the logo LGSM: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners.
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