The 1984 miners' strike may have been a battle for jobs and coal, but it was principally fought by women - one iron lady versus thousands of wives and mothers who mounted protests, established soup kitchens and joined picket lines in defence of their community.
Jane Thornton was there, and vividly recalls leaping over a garden fence to avoid being trampled by a police charge. She first wrote about the experience in Amid the Standing Corn, but her new play applies a historical perspective to examine how the lives of these domestic heroines have developed since the coal industry collapsed.
They have grown older for one thing. Women in their 40s and 50s at the height of the struggle are entering their 60s and 70s now, and their experiences are already beginning to seem like remote history. The area may no longer have any pits, but it does have shiny retail outlets. Thornton's play presents elderly sisters Joan and Gwen awkwardly cradling complicated drinks in an American coffee franchise.
Thornton has a good ear for pensioners' conversation: "Blueberries - they're American an' all. Whatever happened to currants?" Yet gradually the grumbling sisters slough off the years as their memories return to the era before regeneration and retail parks.
Jacqueline Naylor and Sarah Parks make a poignant pair as the creaking sisters, overtaken by events but rightfully proud of their response to adversity. Thornton, who co-directs with husband John Godber, has produced a slender but sensitive play which makes the valuable point that the darkest period of these women's lives was possibly their finest hour.
· Until October 20. Box office: 01924 211311.
