Made in Dagenham was performed by Performance Preparation Academy at Eve Lyons Theatre, Guildford.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
In a week of total political chaos in Britain, the story of the strike by 187 female Ford Dagenham machinists 50 years ago that paved the way for the Equal Pay Act of 1970 could not have been more timely.
Performance Preparation Academy students tackled the racy 2014 musical version of Made in Dagenham with gusto under the direction of Christopher Howell, himself a member of the original company when the show ran for six months in the West End.
Originally a film but played for more laughs, it is a show about the brave, ordinary women who became reluctant activists, taking their case for fair pay to the TUC and House of Commons. It should have moved me more than it did but much of its heart was sacrificed on the altar of comedy, not all of which hit the spot.
Was the misogynist PM Harold Wilson saying he made Barbara Castle a minister because “she could do her own typing” ever funny? And there is limited comic mileage in low-paid workers using lots of F-words and sexual innuendo.
Act II is stronger than the first and kicks off with an exciting treatment of ‘This is America’ when the car company brings over its American heavies to sort out the strikers and there’s one great ballad, ‘The Letter’, superbly sung by Jack Stark as the heroine Rita’s neglected husband Eddie.
Charlotte Nash made an appealing Rita who gets support from an unexpected source, the managing director’s posh wife Lisa, perfectly played by Megan Evans and beautifully dressed in a series of vintage outfits in which the sure hand of costume designer (and PPA principal) Louise Pieri was very evident.
Nash’s pure vocals were a joy to listen to and it’s just a shame Made in Dagenham (book by Richard Bean, lyrics by Richard Thomas, music by David Arnold) has so few musical highlights.
The rabble-rousing finale ‘Stand Up’, like ‘Everybody Out’ at the end of Act I, is a manipulative attempt to get the audience on its feet that works to a degree although is firmly resisted by some.
Cameron Jacob Foster got plenty of laughs as a wildly OTT Harold Wilson and Charlie Clay was a surprisingly likeable Employment minister Barbara Castle, a real firebrand in her time.
Samuel Quick as union spokesman Monty, Tommy Pegg as toothy Ford boss Mr Hopkins, Oli Dickson as strikebuster Tooley, Chelsea Little as dying striker Connie and Mia Richards as lively Sandra all made strong impressions.
Rachel Sargent had a big ensemble to choreograph in a show that had two separate casts sharing the six performances at the in-house Eve Lyons Theatre, renamed to remember the brave fight for life put up by two recent graduates’ young sister. Arnold’s music was in the capable hands of MD Kevin Oliver Jones.
Jeremy Chapman
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