IT is a brave thing to take on a musical for any group of actors - you have to act and sing with conviction.

But the pupils from the Monmouth Comprehensive School tackled the musical based on the Hollywood film ‘Made in Dagenham’ and successfully brought the drama centred around the true-life events of the Ford sewing machinists strike of 1968 to life.

The production principally follows the main character of Rita O’Grady, who acts as the spokesperson for a group of female workers at Ford’s Dagenham plant, who go on strike to fight the inequality that becomes apparent when women workers were to be paid less as they were classed as unskilled.

Hosted at the Savoy Theatre, the three night run sold all tickets and was a professional and vibrant production that would have been worthy of a West End theatre showing.

The singing was worth the ticket alone as the school have a particularly talented number of singers who could step into a career in music tomorrow.Pupil review: ‘Stand up! Stand up!’ and that is just what the audience did in their applause for what can only be described as a West End hit at the Savoy Theatre. The MCS production of ‘Made in Dagenham’ ran from the 11th to the 13th of January.The musical tells the story of Dagenham Ford Motor plant worker Rita O’Grady, along with her husband Eddie. Despite the women performing skilled work, there is still inequality of pay, leading Rita and the rest to go on strike calling for ‘Everybody out!’ Their fight for an ‘ideal world’ soon becomes an international affair, uniting the nation to achieve equality.The quality of performance was reflected in reviews with The Savoy calling it ‘undoubtedly one of the best amateur/youth productions ever seen here’. Twitter and Facebook were on fire with praise for the cast.The performances of Lily Jack and Josh Morgan as Rita and Eddie O’Grady were of professional standard, taking the audience from Monmouth straight to the Essex Factory town of Dagenham.Gracie Follows (Barbara Castle) and Ryan Trigg (Harold Wilson), in their debut roles, delivered outstanding vocals and comedic entertainment throughout, something we’d like to see in our politicians!Ella Young’s vocals (Claire), Alicia McLachlan’s attitude (Beryl) and all the factory girls’ infectious energy had the audience on their feet.Although we were all rooting for the girls, we couldn’t help but fall in love with charming performances by Harri Archer (Cortina Man and Sid) and Jess Fielding (Mr Tooley, the American), despite their attempts to sabotage the strikers.Amy Pearce’s quality of direction was reflected in the incredible cast, ranging all the way from Year 7 to Year 13 and Amy Ritter’s musical direction lead the band to compliment the singers harmoniously.Thank you to Monmouth Savoy Theatre; a perfect venue to display this outstanding production.Hope Allan/Pippa Morgan