Made in Dagenham

What started out in 1968 as a protest by 187 Ford Dagenham women sewing machinists against unequal treatment of skill levels, soon turned into the more general complaint about equal pay for women and men. This eventually resulted in the Equal Pay Act of 1970 and although progress has been made, nearly 50 years on the messages are the same today as they were in the 1960s.

This musical grasps the entire story line, from the shop floor, to the management office, the foreign owner and the trials and tribulations of the Labour Party behind the scenes, often funny and frequently serious and quite moving.

The machine girls led initially by ‘Beryl’ played with great flavour in language and presence by Jackie Williams leave us in no doubt what it was like working in the shop floor conditions of the 1960s, with a strong rendition of ‘Busy Women’ followed equally strongly by the title song ‘Made in Dagenham, by the factory men.

When the girls vote to go on strike the eventual impact this has on 5000 men that are laid off, is felt no more so than by Rita O’Grady (Emily Preece) and ‘Eddie O’Grady’ (Cy Wooldridge) and their two youngsters ‘Graham’ and ‘Sharon’ (Myles Richards / Tom Hill and Larna Richards / Esther Hunt). You can feel the real family tension and Emily and Cy gave very convincing performances. I was totally absorbed in Cy’s number ‘The Letter’ which was delivered with great feeling and the final speech leading to ‘Stand Up’ by Emily was another highlight.

Tim Williams as the out of touch Prime Minister Harold Wilson gave us some amusing moments especially ‘Always a Problem’ with his Aides and his entrechat was a highlight! Jill Parmenter provided a sterling ‘Barbara Castle’ with great presence and characterisation and her number ‘Ideal World’ was excellent. Another challenging number carried off very well was the opening number of Act 2, ‘This is America’ led very well by Julian Richards as ‘Mr Tooley’ and Chris Yates as ’Cortina Man’ made the most of the number  ‘Cortina’.

The show is packed with great musical numbers and impressive performances were also provided by Hollie Christian-Brookes as ‘Clare’ and Melanie Jones as ‘Connie’ and the scene following Connie’s death with ‘Monty’ played by Scott Denton was sensitively handled. Attiye Partridge as ‘Sandra’ and Molly Parmenter as ‘Cass’ also gave good support. 

‘The Management’ led by ‘Mr Hopkins’ (David Gregory) depicted well how you imagine the whole controversy was handled at the time and I liked the portrayal of ‘Lisa Hopkins’ by Wendy Richards who had far more to offer than her husband gave her credit for.

The exciting score was very well handled by the band although I would have preferred it if they could have lowered the volume in the opening scene with the children and also provided some ‘scene change music’ in two instances. The company numbers throughout the show were all impressive. The set provided the right atmosphere enhanced by the costumes and lighting, with some well controlled follow spots.

In her directing debut, Susan Doran and the entire production team should be very pleased with the result and deserved the full houses they received.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.