IN 1984, the miners were defeated, their families were torn apart and the media circus went home.

Upton miner’s son John Godber traces what happened to miner Harry and his wife Dot in the 30 years after the strike in his epic new play, Shafted, performed by Godber and his wife, the playwright and actress Jane Thornton, at the East Riding Theatre, Beverley, from Saturday until May 10.

Suddenly Harry and Dot were thrown together, with new battles to fight and new jobs to hold down, from window cleaning in Wakefield to running a boarding house in Bridlington, but life would never be the same again.

Fuelled with honesty and Yorkshire grit, Shafted is a typically Godber-humoured account of those whose jobs had been taken, and communities destroyed, and how they fought back after being shafted.

The pits may have gone, but the shifts are still seismic in the first Godber play to reflect on the miners’ strike. He and Jane last appeared on stage together in Godber’s two-hander April In Paris at Hull Truck Theatre in March 2010, reprising the husband-and-wife roles they had previously played 18 years earlier in the 1992 Hull Festival.

Tickets for Shafted can be booked on 01482 874050 or at ert.eticketme.com