EAST Riding Theatre in Beverley is a new name on the theatre map. Familiar with the power of oratory from its days as an Edwardian Baptist chapel, it has been revivified from disuse by director Vincent Regan, who opened the theatre last December.

Time was when first runs of John Godber's plays would be at Hull Truck Theatre, but Godber now operates his own company in tandem with Wakefield Theatre Royal and so the world premiere of Shafted! has played Wakefield and now Beverley.

There was not a seat to spare when The Press attended: testament to the continuing pulling power of Britain's second most performed living playwright, and the extra interest provided by the subject matter of Yorkshire's mining community and the casting of Godber and his wife, Jane Thornton – who once picketed with Anne Scargill – in the two-hander.

Godber, a miner's son from Upton, has never addressed the subject of the Miners Strike of 1984/85, but it has burned inside him over these 30 years, just as Leeds United fans still shout "Scabs" scornfully at Nottingham Forest supporters in memory of strike-breaking.

"If there was one thing that struck me in researching the play, it was that the spirit of defiance and anger at what had befallen the miners is as deeply felt today as it was in 1984," says Godber in his programme note.

The exclamation mark in the title indicates Shafted! is a comedy, but "Godber humoured" as the brochure puts it, and Godber has always been at his best when his humour is driven by injustice, rage, despair, social politics and a desire for change, be it in Bouncers, Teechers or his environmental satire Crown Prince.

On top of that some of his most fulfilling plays have been his two-handers, in which John and Jane first performed together, such as Happy Jack and April In Paris. Put the Godber ire, belligerent humour and a cast of two on stage and Shafted! has all the ingredients for his best piece in ages, as he and Thornton play miner Harry and his wife Dot in the 30 years after the seismic strike.

Accompanied by a pop soundtrack, the story moves forward in the first half to 1996 than re-starts in older age in 2014 before going back through the years to 1996: a theatrical device that adds hindsight and intrigue and prevents Shafted! from becoming one paced in Godber and Neil Sissons' production.

Godber has often written cannily of the erosive ebb and flow of marriage and here, not for the first time, he has a couple where the man clings to the past and his pride, reluctant to change but full of unspoken love, while the woman adapts to whatever is slung at them as they take on new jobs, new challenges.

Godber says he is telling only one story and could have told plenty more, but this microcosm speaks for those others too, and it is Godber's own voice that that rages how Yorkshire has never recovered but stands defiant. Shafted but not shifted.

Shafted!, East Riding Theatre, Beverley, until Sunday. Box office: 01482 874050 or at ert.eticketme.com