Maxine Peake and guests perform a live reading from her play on the 1993 Parkside Colliery occupation, revisiting working-class resistance and its relevance today.
Maxine Peake presents a special live reading from her play, Queens of the Coal Age, detailing the true story of four miners' wives – Anne Scargill, Dot Kelly, Elaine Evans, and Lesley Lomas – who occupied Parkside Colliery in 1993 to protest pit closures. This special reading showcases their courage and Northern wit in fighting to save mining communities, and revisits a defining moment of working-class resistance in recent British history.
Returning to this chapter on stage, the piece reflects on solidarity, labour and loss, drawing a clear line between the industrial struggles of the past and the social and political realities shaping the UK today. In doing so, the reading becomes both an act of remembrance and a lens through which to consider contemporary questions of British identity, power and whose stories are heard.
"I've always wanted to write about aspects of the miners strike that I felt had been under explored in British drama. How the women mobilized, became the backbone of the strike and why they kept on fighting. The 80s was the era women from mining communities became emancipated and found their voice. I was overwhelmed by their strength and courage." - Maxine Peake
Cast:
Maxine Peake (Actor - Screen: Shameless, Silk, The Village, Black Mirror, Anne, Funny Cow, Peterloo / Stage: Hamlet, The Skriker, A Streetcar Named Desire, Happy Days, Mother Courage and Her Children)
Jason Done (Actor - Screen: Fackham Hall, A Hand Rises, The Hack, Brassic, The Long Shadow / Stage: Macbeth, Ladybird, States of Shock)
Christine Bottomley (Actor - Screen: The Arbor, Peterloo, Keeping Rosy, Misper, Sherwood, The End of the Fucking World, Back to Life / Stage: How to Hold your Breath, Ladybird, Osama The Hero)
Carla Henry (Actor - Screen: Revengers Tragedy, Cul De Sac, Queer As Folk / Stage: Sweat by Lynn Notage)
Eva Scott (Actor - Screen: Fool Me Once, Arthur’s Whisky, EastEnders, Coronation Street / Stage: A Knight's Tale, Wonder Boy, Work It Out, BETTY!: A Sort of Musical, I Wanna Be Yours, Don’t You Know It’s Going to Be Alright by Maxine Peake & Decades
Tachia Newell (Actor - Screen: Dune, Dirty God, Doctor Who, Waterloo Road, Vera, Casualty, Coronation Street, Dodger / Stage: Macbeth, Liberation, Animal Farm, Sylvia, Inspector Morse: House of Ghosts)
Age rating: 16+
