Arts & Entertainment
Strange bedfellows?
‘80s-set Brit film finds gays joining forces with miners
Dominic West as Jonathan in ‘Pride.’ (Photo by Nicola Dave; courtesy CBS Films)
“Pride” is a thoroughly engaging movie that manages to be political without being preachy and deeply moving without being overly sentimental.
Briskly directed by Mathew Warchus from a script by Stephen Beresford, the movie features fine performances, sharp dialogue and a lively pace. It opens today at several theaters in the D.C. region.
Based on historical events, the movie opens during the London Pride March in 1984. As a trick leaves his apartment, young gay rights activist Mark Ashton (Ben Schnetzer) catches television coverage of the strike by the National Union of Mineworkers. He quickly senses that there is common cause between the gay rights movement and the miners. Both are demonized by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and conservative politicians, hated by the tabloid press and beaten by police.
Mark quickly rallies his friends into raising money for the miners. They call themselves LGSM: “Lesbians and Gay Men Support the Miners.” They are surprisingly effective fundraisers, but run into a problem. None of the striking unions want to take their money. The resourceful Mark decides to take the money directly to a struggling mining community. Disco, comedy and calamity ensue.
Warchus and Beresford tell this inspirational story with remarkable efficiency and effectiveness, which is both a strength and a weakness. An acclaimed stage director, Warchus handles the large ensemble cast with remarkable grace. The performances are uniformly strong, but while the characters may be based on real people, the script often draws on generic story lines instead of specific details, especially for the minor characters. For example, there’s the spiky lesbian Steph (a vibrant Faye Marsay), the newbie Joe whose parents discover his cache of photos (the effervescent George MacKay) and the elderly Gwen (a charming Menna Trussler) who wonders if all lesbians are vegetarians and keeps shouting “Where are my lesbians?”
Schnetzer and Paddy Considine as Dai turn in interesting performances as two very different organizers. The younger gay rights organizer masks his inner demons with bravado where the older labor leader radiates a quiet confidence. Imelda Staunton (best known as Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter movies) leaps zestfully into the role of Hefina, the leader of the strike committee; she cuts a rug and cuts down narrow-minded villagers with the same fiery passion. Bill Nighy gives a powerfully understated performance as Cliff, the tongue-tied local historian who waxes poetic when he talks about local history or national politics.
With unwavering support from composer Christoper Nightingale and cinematographer Tat Radcliffe, Warchus also creates a beautiful movie. The boisterous urban scenery of gay London and the bleak streets of Onllwyn are captured with the same delicacy and eye for detail as the rolling landscapes of Wales. The rich score draws on a variety of pop and folk sources, most notably Pete Seger’s “Solidarity Forever” and the labor anthem “Bread and Roses,” beautifully sung by Bronwen Lewis (a finalist on “The Voice”).
“Pride” is a well-told tale about a historic alliance between LGBT activists and labor leaders that also serves as a striking parable for our times.
The 2026 Capital Pride Parade was held in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, June 20.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key, Robert Rapanut and Landon Shackelford)
Theater
‘Feeling Afraid’ explores life of a neurotic stand-up comic
Navigating sex, work, and possibly love in London
‘Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going to Happen’
Through July 12
Studio Theatre
1501 14th St., N.W.
$55-$102
Studiotheatre.org
Wordily yet rightly titled, solo show “Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen” dives deeply into the world of a neurotic stand-up comic as he navigates sex, work, and possibly love in London.
Busy arranging hookups and dates on “The App,” the 36-year-old gay funnyman juggles a full dance card; still he’s never been in a romantic relationship. While he’s willing to give love a shot, he’s not pressed about it. As he says, he harbors no fear of dying alone.
Currently making its American premiere at Studio Theatre, this darkly humorous Edinburgh Fringe import features terrific out English actor Steven Webb as The Comedian who’s about to explore what it means to spend all his time with one man.
At Studio’s intimate Mead Theatre, Kat Heath’s minimal set says standard comedy club (fluorescent tube lighting, the mic with a long cord, a single stool backed by a rose-colored curtain), but gay playwright Marcelo Dos Santos has conjured something much more than a live comedy set.
Yes, The Comedian bounces onstage in his red Converse high tops, jeans, and pink shirt with a huge mouth emblazoned on the back, but he delivers more than jokes. At times hilariously self-deprecating, then dark, and occasionally a lesson on what makes standup work, this is a layered, well-acted piece.
With Webb (a keen caricaturist of types and voices) playing all the parts while conducting The Comedian’s hilariously frenetic interior monologue, “Feeling Afraid” takes us through a summer of love. It seems after six chaste dates with The American, our nervous hero has found Mr. Right. The American is earnest, smart, hesitant to initiate sex. He’s also well built with a beautiful smile. And strangely, he’s been medically advised not to laugh aloud.
The Comedian delights in the joys of new love: dates, first kisses, sex, and then suddenly spending all of his time with the adored. Visits to art galleries become fun. Eating home cooked meals followed by grim documentaries is a thing. The Comedian is beguiled as his own boyish figure fills out, but something isn’t right. He can’t entirely relax.
Along the way we meet the Aussie doctor, our protagonist’s longtime hookup; a young runner with some exceptional body parts; the random third in a failed threesome; grumpy working comics, male and female; and an ineffectual counselor.
Webb gives a lightning-fast performance that boggles the mind (in terms velocity and virtuosity). He can be impish, very impish. He’s nervous energy incarnate, flashing jazz hands, grimacing but handsome when still. He’s likeable, a necessity when delivering a hilariously rude joke just feet away from two stone-faced audience members. (Perhaps they were laughing on the inside? At any rate, they stayed through the end the show.)
Produced by the team behind Fringe hits “Fleabag” and “Baby Reindeer,” small stage works that were developed into major TV screen successes, “Feeling Afraid” is funny for sure, and it’s also highly confessional, sexually explicit, and raw.
Written by Dos Santos during COVID lockdown, the piece was a smash hit in the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe before finding further success in London. Its depiction of a youngish queer guy navigating the big city rings entirely true. Like so much Fringe stuff, the one-man show is delightfully lewd and standup inspired.
One little moan: the show closes cleverly but too abruptly with its star dashing offstage without sufficiently basking in the admiration and applause of his thoroughly chuffed audience.
They say third time’s a charm, and regarding “Feeling Afraid,” I’d agree. After two performance cancellations (first for laryngitis and the second involving faulty air conditioning on an especially muggy June evening), I made my third trek to Studio where I found both the actor and AC in very fine fettle. And truly, Webb’s work was more than worth the wait.
The 2026 Baltimore Pride Festival, “Pride in the Park,” was held at Druid Hill Park on Sunday, June 14.
(Washington Blade photos by Linus Berggren)
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