A new exhibition opening at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Hanley this Saturday (18 May), called No Going Back, tells the story of the role Staffordshire miners’ wives played in the 1984 Miners’ Strike and the group they formed together when it ended.
New Vic Borderlines have teamed up with that group, the North Staffs Miners Wives Action Group (NSMWAG), for the 40th anniversary of the strike, including working with Rose Hunter, one of the women featured in the Victoria Theatre’s documentary play Nice Girls about the event.
The Young People’s Theatre Company are following in the New Vic documentary tradition, performing The Solidarity March, singing songs including There’s No Going Back by Sandra Kerr (taught to them by Rose Hunter), and speaking the messages of the miners’ wives from 40 years ago. The drama piece explores what it means to stand together for what you believe in, and what things they would stand up for today, and will be performed outside the museum on Saturday 18 May at 2.15pm.
Borderlines has also received an exploratory grant from Keele University Institute of Social Inclusion (KiSI) to work with academic and writer Dr Lisa Blower, to engage with the coalfield communities, especially girls and women, using a recreation of the Pit Camp Caravan. The Pit Camp Caravan will become a touring exhibition of some of the NSMWAG archive and a mobile theatrical space for performances of a piece written by Lisa called The Miner Bird Monologues, which is due to be performed in July this year.