Greenock’s Lee Jeans women’s historic strike recreated in epic musical

Starring River City’s Joe Freer and Department Q’s Aaron Dutchard, the play has been a hit with theatergoers.

Women at Lee Jeans factory strike back when faced with 240 redundancies greenock Coming together in a historic attack – to take on The Man. And they won.

Now city of inverclyde is set to celebrate his achievement 45 years later with the grand finale of a touring stage version of his story.

Stand and Deliver: The Lee Jeans Sit-in brings to light the story of the women of the National Theater of Scotland who occupied the factory for seven months when their American owners tried to sell their jobs to Northern Ireland after Scottish subsidies ended.

The play, featuring River City’s Joe Freer and Department Q’s Aaron Dochard, has theatergoers protesting the defiance of the Greenock women – and men – whose wildcat brawl has become an internationally celebrated display of militant potential.

And its retelling as a barnstorming musical on stage has its roots in our sister newspaper, the Daily Record.

After meeting strikers Maggie Wallace and Katherine Robertson for an interview for the record during a reunion disco in 2016, I approached the National Theater of Scotland with a stage show concept.

It had everything. They adapted the lyrics of pop songs to suit their purpose, singing along and hanging the words on the wall to maintain morale.

They climbed out of the skylight and down the drainpipe to avoid the police, returning with hundreds of fish eaters after informing the media.

They rewired phones, printed keys in soap and burned their redundancy letters, all the while challenging the nervous London union to support their fight.

Shipyard workers donated cash to help the women in their fight.

This experience was a personal awakening for many factory girls, teenage girls whose self-confidence grew as they toured Britain and spoke at rallies.

Ten years later, in collaboration with the play’s author Francis Poet, the story finally comes home to Inverclyde, now told from the setting of the Inverclyde Social Club.

Expectations are very high from actor Aaron. He said: “We’ve been overwhelmed by the audience reaction. It’s not a normal theater crowd – people are cheering through the show. It’s mind-blowing.

“The sold-out audience at the Beacon is going to be absolutely crazy, real true-story political theater for the people who know all the context, and some of the people who were there. I can’t wait.”

Jo Freer plays shop manager and head Helen Monaghan, who becomes a pillar of the labor movement.

Helen, now 90, has seen the show twice, and she will attend the ceremony with several workers on Tuesday and Wednesday. She is as enthusiastic now as she was then. Speaking to the cast of the recently canceled River City on the show’s opening night at the Tron in Glasgow, he joked that they should have taken over the BBC studios.

Jo said: “Playing Helen is a career highlight, but challenging. There are some really emotional moments. I cried during rehearsals. It’s been a privilege to tell her story.”

Initially, Helen shied away from recognition, as they considered her a troublemaker. Even now, she makes sure that the spotlight doesn’t fall only on her.

“Every one of them deserves recognition,” he said. “I was as brave as she was. It’s great to tell the story of what all the women did.”

The cast, including Chiara Sparks, Hannah Jarrett Scott, Madeline Grieve and Shonagh Murray, perform with the energy of a manufacturing plant, singing, acting and playing instruments. At a show at the Tron Theater in Glasgow, a line of older people from the Lodging House Mission clapped, stamped and cheered.

They were at a theater workshop in Troon the other day, and one told me how he had tears in his eyes. “I saw myself on that factory floor,” he said, referring to a scene when tricks of sound and lighting trick the audience into thinking they are watching a trolley boy.

“I was intimidated by working with these older women right out of school. But I loved it.”

For Maggie Wallace, it is bittersweet to see her teenage self portrayed with all the chaos of her time among the so-called naughty ‘dirty dozen’.

Magee said, “The story has been in a box in the back of our minds for years, and now that it’s been brought back it’s fantastic, especially because young people are learning about it.” “We did something good.

“It’s amazing how six actors managed to tell the story. Greenock is going to rock. We’re super excited about it.”

What would the Maggie Wallace of 1981 think?

He said: “If I told her there would be a play on it in years to come she would say, ‘Yeah, that would be perfect.’ But he would be proud. She grew up through protests. He was a loose cannon, but he did well in the end.

Get more Daily Record exclusives by signing up for free on Google’s Favorite Sources. Click Here