We’re Not Going Back

75 Mines. 3 Sisters. 1 Cause. (And a six pack of Babycham.)

Red Ladder Theatre Company and Unite the Union presents We’re Not Going Back, written by Boff Whalley.

The year 2024 is the fortieth anniversary of the 1984/85 miners’ strike, a dispute that still resonates today. But the strike wasn’t just about pickets vs police – in this hard-hitting musical comedy there are no miners and no cops. Instead, we follow the fortunes of three sisters in a pit village, hit hard by the government’s war against the miners and determined to set up a branch of ‘Women Against Pit Closures’.

Early 1984, and Olive, Mary and Isabel are sisters whose everyday squabbles collide with a strike that forces them to question their lives, their relationships and their family ties.

This strike wasn’t just a war fought on the battlegrounds of picket line, parliament and public opinion. It was as much a battle in the homes and families of those fighting for their communities.

We’re Not Going Back tackles the resilience of working communities, the make-and-mend fabric of family and the power of sticking two fingers up to a government hell-bent on destruction… and all with humour, song and a six pack of Babycham.