Leeds-United! - A Play for Today Review

There are some spoilers contained in this review.

Leeds-United! was first broadcast in 1974 as part of the landmark Play for Today series. It is based on real events and tells the story of a group of female textile factory workers that took part in an unofficial strike for better wages in Leeds four years previously. Unhappy with a previous deal negotiated by their trade union the workers decide to organise their own protest for a more substantial pay rise and succeed in bringing much of the Leeds manufacturing industry to a standstill as other factory workers join them in solidarity.  

The play explores the conflict between the core group of militant activists that encourages the wildcat strike, the trade union that wants to end it so formal negotiations can be carried out, the factory owners intent on using the unrest to their advantage and the plight of the ordinary workers that are stuck between these competing interests. This high quality drama is typical of the Play for Today series which grew out an earlier incarnation called the Wednesday Play and comprised more than three hundred television dramas broadcast between 1974 and 1980. Groundbreaking, thought-provoking and often controversial the series would portray and explore issues affecting Britain throughout this tumultuous period of its history. Leeds-United!  in particular deserves to be held up as a superb example of how television in this era succeeded in breaking boundaries with its radical messages that brought important stories and social issues of the day the forefront. 

When the play begins in a bleak and austere residential street in a working class area of Leeds in the very early hours, a group of workers are catching a bus to begin the day shift at their textile factory. There is a growing sense of tension and unease as talk largely consists of the recent “official” strike action oragnised by their trade union which is now ending as the workers return to the factory floor. Most agree that the deal was inadequate but at this stage none are particularly eager for further unrest. As the ladies return to their benches a robotic, monotone voice-over dictates the terms of their employment contract including their meagre rates of pay, hours of work and that the fact that the workers are not entitled to pay should they become sick. 

The impression is created that the factory is significantly underpaying and undervaluing its employees considering the physically demanding and skilled nature of the work involved and that the recent official strike has done little to change this. It portrays the factory owners as inept and conniving, completely powerless to prevent the mass walkouts that spread throughout the city as they bicker and blame one another in their boardrooms and on golf courses. What is also clear throughout the play is that the inevitable modernization of the textile industry – which will see much of the manual labour carried out by the majority female workforce replaced with automated machines – is just on the horizon. 

As the women gossip and laugh together whilst they start working they are approached by renegade shop steward Gridley, a charismatic individual who some workers distrust because of his suspected allegiance to the Communist Party. He agrees with the workers that the trade union’s capitulation in the previous strike has led to an inadequate deal and at a meeting held in the factory canteen that lunchtime he gives a passionate speech decrying the weakness and corruption of both the “masters” and the trade union for their insistence on an end to the previous strike. The workers are so convinced by his stirring appeal for solidarity and further action they decide to immediately down tools once again, taking to the streets with signs, singing protest songs about wanting “a bob an hour” and determined to rally others to their cause. 

Some of the most wonderfully shot and choreographed scenes in the play are these mostly female workers striding jovially arm in arm through the streets of Leeds, calling for a fair rate of pay that is equal to that of their male counterparts (the strike took place just before the UK parliament’s adoption of the Equal Pay Act). They succeed in gathering support from all of the textile factories nearby and agree to prolong the strike for as long as it takes for their demands to be met, much to the discernment of the trade union and the factory owners. In one unique scene the camera follows the progress of a wireless radio pinned to a conveyor belt that relays news of the recently announced strike to toiling workers in a factory that has yet to join the protest. As the radio snakes its away along the production line departing news of the strike to all within earshot, the entire factory floor walks out to join the growing demonstrations. 

Whilst treating the cause sympathetically the play does not shy away from portraying some of the strikers as resorting to thuggish tactics, including when militant shop steward Mollie (Lynne Perry) attempts to intimidate a group of factory workers that have yet to join the strike by threatening to “smoke them out” and throwing a lit rag through a window. Ultimately these actions do nothing to further their cause and succeed in sowing division amongst the workers and helping the factory owners to portray the strikers as a mindless rabble. By showing the reality of unreasonable behaviour existing on both sides of the dispute, Leeds-United!  demonstrates further its commitment to presenting the realities of the situation even if these are occasionally at odds with its message of support for the workers involved, helping to detract from the idea that the play is merely one sided political propaganda.

The acting performances of Perry and many of the other strikers is superb and steeped in Northern social realism; much of the play is filmed as if using a covert camera, capturing the workers’ casual conversations about the hardship of their lives and the strike as if they are real people being filmed for a documentary. Particularly stirring in her role as one of the strike leaders is Elizabeth Spriggs whose character, Maggie, is at first cautious in her support for the women to take action unilaterally without the support of their trade union. Eventually she becomes one of their most ardent supporters by helping to lead the strike and build morale with stirring speeches that attack the bosses and the perceived cowardice of their union representatives in equal measure.

Interestingly it is implied that both Maggie and her husband Joe, who later takes over a leading role in the strike, were once Communists that left the official party in protest at its support for the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary and the repression that followed. Their political background means that despite their socialist leanings they are deeply suspicious of Gridley as the strike’s main architect and his subsequent decision to immediately adopt a more moderate line once he has agitated for it to commence. They correctly assume this about-face occurs as a result of his continued allegiance to the Communist Party and its desire to exert influence over British industrial disputes, not because of any particular affinity with the strikers or their cause. 

And yet the sinister Gridley is perhaps one of the most fascinating characters in the whole play as he embodies the shrewd and calculating nature of those within the movement that are cynically using the strike for other purposes and not to improve the lot of the women involved. This negative portrayal contributes to the suggestion that the play is essentially Trotskyist in inclination because of its depiction of ordinary workers rebelling against both the exploitation of the factory owners and the weak and ineffectual leadership of their workplace representatives, only for the “revolution” to be subsequently betrayed.

This is perhaps one of the reasons why Leeds-United!, despite its radical political message, was met with a mixed reaction from those on the extremities of the Left when it first appeared: Trotskyist groups praised it for its realistic depiction of exploited workers whilst the Morning Star newspaper, which was openly aligned with the Soviet Union and the official Communist Party decried it as, “...a snide distortion,” presumably for its negative portrayal of Gridley and the suggestion that he was using the workers to further his own political ends and eventually encouraging the strike’s disintegration.  

Anybody with an interest in progressive politics or an interest in quality British television from this era would do well to seek out Leeds-United! for its accurate depiction of a little know historical event that saw a resilient and principled group of women standing up for fair wages and conditions. For portraying the reality of the striker’s situation, let down even by those tasked with fighting their battles and taking affirmative action for themselves it deserves further praise and recognition. For its positive portrayal of working class women alone, and their commitment to stand against the weakness and corruption of their male counterparts Leeds-United! was very far ahead of its time.