Made in Dagenham producer Dean Patrick on equal pay, community power, & the enduring magic of live theatre

When the curtain rises on Made in Dagenham at Leeds’ Carriageworks Theatre next month, the story of 185 women walking out of Ford’s Essex plant over being reclassified as "unskilled" won't just feel like a nostalgia trip - it will feel like a mirror to contemporary West Yorkshire.

"The humour is very much character-driven and reflective of working-class attitudes," says producer, director, and choreographer Dean Patrick. "Ordinarily, there’s a contentment with what you’ve got. But when the workers are informed they’ve been graded as unskilled, there’s a shift: 'You’re downgrading us, and it’s going to be worse.'

“With equal pay protests still taking place outside council buildings today, those themes are right there in our political landscape."

For Dean, the production doesn't shy away from how deeply ingrained those systemic boundaries remain, right down to rigid gender expectations: "Society in my lifetime was brought up dictating 2.4 children, right down to pink is for girls and blue is for boys. In the show, one of the factory characters wants to be an airline pilot and gets laughed at because that’s 'not a job for a woman.'”

Dean pauses for a moment, then tells the Yorkshire Evening Post: “We’ve come a long way, but we’ve still got a long way to go."

That tension extends into the domestic sphere, where lead character Rita faces the heart-breaking friction between fighting on the picket line and keeping her family together.

"It leads into discussions around how women balance a career and a family - that juggling act of trying to be everything to everybody."

Unpaid Professionals: Redefining "Community Theatre"

To bring that historical tension to life, Patrick has assembled a cast spanning all of West Yorkshire, including performers who lived through the era themselves.

"Some of the performers are educating me as director on what that workplace was actually like - going into a male-dominated office and it being 'acceptable' to be felt up or spoken to in a certain way," Dean notes.

"Through a modern lens, thankfully, we look at that now and say that's not okay."

While the production is framed as a community show, Dean is quick to dismantle any outdated stereotypes surrounding the label. "Some people hear 'community' and think am-dram, but it's far from it.

“The calibre of performers we’re dealing with is high - they are essentially unpaid professionals. We have cast members who have worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and bring vast experience. They aren't being paid, but they are here because they recognise how important this story is."

As audiences face a continued squeeze on household budgets, Dean believes local theatre provides an immersive antidote to inflated ticket prices elsewhere in the entertainment landscape.

"People are being much more selective with what they spend their money on," Dean says. "If you go to a massive stadium gig, ticket prices can be sky-high just for one night. But with theatre, for half the price, you get total immersion, light and shade, and a live moment in time that will never happen twice.

“That magic of being in the room - sat in the audience or on stage - can't be replicated on a screen."

Ultimately, Dean hopes the production leaves Leeds audiences uplifted as well as provoked. "It’s a story about how ordinary people can do extraordinary things.

“If anybody is intrigued, we’d love to see them join the picket line."

Made in Dagenham runs at Carriageworks Theatre from October 1 to October 3 - for tickets and performance times, visit the theatre’s official website.