Stand & Deliver: The Lee Jeans Sit-In @ Tron Theatre, Glasgow

When most of the theatre world tends to reflect its largely middle-class demographic, it is refreshing when a real story about ordinary workers, fighting back in extraordinary ways, is told on stage so beautifully. Writer Frances Poet brings us exactly this breath of fresh air with a theatrical telling of the Lee Jeans sit-in of 1981. 240 workers, mainly women, faced losing their jobs when it was announced Lee's factory in Greenock would close. What followed was a seven-month occupation that won against all odds, changing their lives forever.

Centring the formidable shop steward Helen Monaghan (Jo Freer) and the boisterous 19-year-old Maggie Wallace (Chiara Sparkes), the audience is taken on a musically woven journey of the highs and lows of the sit-in: tensions with family and friends, the dirty tricks played by management to (literally) smoke them out, and the outpouring of solidarity from workers across the country.

The versatile cast perform intermittently as a live band, playing hits from Duran Duran’s Girls on Film and Kim Wilde’s Kids in America to The Specials’ Ghost Town, evoking both the endurance of the women and the bleak reality of the time.

Later, in a moving moment, an old overhead projector reveals the names of the 140 women who fought until the end. As the cast bow, they gesture to some of the real women in the audience that were involved, to rapturous applause. 

This is a wonderfully crafted tribute, and a story that feels more alive and urgent today than ever. It is worth seeing again – next time in Greenock.

---

Stand & Deliver: The Lee Jeans Sit-In, Tron Theatre, Glasgow, until 9 May, then touring Scotland including Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, 19-20 May and Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock, 9-10 Jun – full tour dates at nationaltheatrescotland.com