MADE IN DAGENHAM, 4Star****, Hornchurch & Ipswich, to 18 October
Hornchurch & Ipswich
MADE IN DAGENHAM
Book by Richard Bean, Music by David Arnold, Lyrics by Richard Thomas.
4Star****
Runs to 18 Oct
Queen’s Theatre
Billet Lane, Hornchurch, RM11 1QT to 17 September2016.
Mon-Wed 7.30pm Thu-Sat 8pm Mat Sat 2.30pm
Runs 2hr 10 mins One interval.
Then at
New Wolsey Theatre, Civic Drive, Ipswich 1P1 2AS from 21 Sept to 18 Oct.
TICKETS: Hornchurch – 01708 443333
www.boxoffice@queens_theatre.co,uk
Ipswich: 01473 295900
www.wolseytheatre.co.uk
Review: William Russell 30 August.
Dazzlingly good revival goes on the road
Douglas Rintoul’s production of this 2014 musical – it only ran for about six months in the West End with Gemma Arterton in the leading role – makes one wonder why audiences fell off back then. The score may have no hit the spot songs but it is tuneful and Richard Thomas’s lyrics are very good indeed. Maybe people just did not want to see a show about women who made the coverings for car seats at Ford’s Dagenham plant going on strike in 1968 for fair pay and ending up leading the campaign for equal pay.
It also has flaws. Richard Bean’s book veers wildly in tone, unlike the film on which it is based. The politicians – especially Harold Wilson, Prime Minister at the time – are caricatures, as are the civil servants and the American bosses who turn up to sort matters out. This all jars with a perfectly good story about how the leader of the strike, a fictional character called Rita O’Grady, rises to the occasion and how doing so affects her marriage.
But let that pass, the show is what it is and in Hornchurch, with Dagenham just down the road, it has great local resonance. Taken as it stand, one ends up with a splendid evening’s entertainment.
As Rita Daniella Bowen sings beautifully and catches all the nuances of how a perfectly intelligent woman trapped in the role of mother and housewife which so many women were at the time discovers unrealised talents. She is backed by a first rate cast.
Alex Tomkins is a suitably taken aback husband Eddie – wives then did not do that sort of thing, jobs like the ones they had were just there to augment the family income – and Claire Machin has a whale of a time as Barbara Castle, then Secretary of State for Employment and Industry, who came to their aid. Two years later, after the TUC had been persuaded by a speech Rita gets to make at the annual conference, the Equal Pay Act was introduced.
All the women in the machine shop are well defined characters, all get their chances with Angela Bain as the caustic Beryl and Wendy Morgan as the shop steward in particular seizing them with relish.
Rintoul’s production, straightforward and unfussy, is a splendid opening to his tenure as the theatre’s Artistic Director. It is one of those productions in which the cast is also the orchestra, something which does not always work to the advantage of a show but certainly does here. The glass ceiling for women is still there, this was just the first cracks, but it is well on its way to being shattered.
Beryl: Angela Bain
Rita O’Grady: Daniella Bowen.
Gregory Hubble/Sid: Daniel Carter-Hope.
Bill: Dan de Cruz.
Sandra Beaumont: Sophie-May Feek.
Mr Tooley: Jeffrey Harmer.
Ted: Callum Harrower.
Barry/Aide 2: Joey Hickman.
Monty: Anthony Hunt.
Cass/Cortina Girl: Martina Isibor.
Harold Wilson/ Mr Bickton/ Chubby Chuff: Graham Kent.
Barbara Castle: Claire Machin.
Connie Riley: Wendy Morgan.
Mr Hopkins: Jamie Noar.
Lisa Hopkins/Cortina Girl: Loren O’Dair.
Factory Girl/Cortina Girl: Sloned Saunders.
Clare: Sarah Scowen.
Stan/Aide 3/Cortina Man: Steve Simmonds.
Ron Macer/Aide 1: Thomas Sutcliffe.
Eddie O’Grady: Alex Tomkins.
Young Company: Aimee Flint;Teagan George; Christian Kraus; Freddie Parker; Paige Smith; Noel Sullivan.
Director: Douglas Rintoul.
Musical Director: Ben Goddard.
Choreographer: Tim Jackson.
Designer: Hayley Grindle.
Lighting Designer: Paul Anderson.
Sound Designer: Emma Laxton.
Voice Coach: Charmian Hoare.
2016-09-01 08:56:18