It was a night at the Tron Theatre for me on Friday, watching the National Theatre of Scotland’s Stand and Deliver, the story of the 1981 Lee Jeans sit in.

I’ll avoid too many spoilers, though the history of the action is well-documented, and the show was warmly reviewed in The Herald last week.  Led by shop steward Helen Monaghan, and far from well-supported by their own union, the National Union of Tailor and Garment Workers, 240 mainly women workers barricaded themselves into the factory in Greenock for seven months, denying the US company’s attempts to close them down. They ultimately won a reprieve, though the factory did shut a couple of years later.  Despite the tepid support from their own union, the wider movement including the STUC came to their aid.  Local shipyard workers added 50p to their subs to provide financial assistance, whilst miners, transport workers and many others travelled to the factory to show their support.

With some noble exceptions, film and theatre productions covering workers’ struggles are surprisingly rare.  Pride, made in 2014 dramatised the miners’ strike focussing on the solidarity between miners and the LGBT community.  The strike also provides the backdrop for wonderful films such as Billy Elliot and Brassed Off.  Made In Dagenham is a film dramatisation, followed by a West End musical adaptation, of the 1968 strike at Ford’s Dagenham car plant where women machinists went on strike against pay discrimination and to have their work re-classified as skilled. The action is interpreted by some as having been a key driver in bringing about the Equal Pay Act of 1970, though the full demand of the women, for........

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