By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: *****

WHEN? Saturday 12 July (matinee), runs through 15 July 2025 RUNTIME: 150 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

Ana wants closeted girlfriend Lori to join a lesbian choir to find some shared pride in their relationship.

• Read on for reasons including how this play really bares its teeth and bites down on division

Lori, played by Leah Harvey (As You Like It, @SohoPlace) in fine singing voice, works as a satellite TV technician and meets bored housewife Dina trapped in a controlling marriage who wants to explore her same-sex attractions.

Mariah Louca’s complicated Bridge has feelings for fellow chorister Fi (Liz Carr, The Normal Heart, National Theatre), who uses a wheelchair and is splitting from her partner, but doesn’t know if they are reciprocated.

Throw in a gloriously imperious choir mistress called Connie given real depth by Shuna Snow and a horny Ellie on the prowl for new recruits and you have the set up for an L Word-themed edition of Glee as the misfits practise against the odds to perform on London’s Pride mainstage.

Iman Qureshi’s play boasts a first half highlighting the best of a community, unafraid to be catty – no pun intended – to laugh at itself but also to show how a shared activity can offer real hope and joy.

It’s in the more difficult 2nd half where this magnificent play really bares its teeth and bites down on division being monopolised politically to drive this community apart and Ministry gives both sides of the argument a fair hearing.

Elsewhere Fi is exasperated that despite her protestations there still isn’t an access ramp to enable her to enter and exit the choir’s HQ unaided.

But also that the lesbian venues that did used to exist were always in basements where she and her wheelchair struggled to access.

Ministry starts as a universal story of underdogs against the world, finds its feet in representing the community it’s about and then dazzles with a difficult exploration of a current political issue.

We’re not quite its target audience but left in hope, filled with admiration of a play executed beautifully and not before shedding silent tears at its moving close. It’s not on for much longer but fully deserves to find another run and soon.

• Main pictures by Mark Senior via Facebook courtesy Kiln Theatre Tickets
• Have you seen a Kiln Theatre show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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