We Are The Lions, Mr. Manager!

After a sell-out run in 2017, the critically-acclaimed We are the Lions, Mr. Manager returns to Tara Theatre, telling the remarkable story of Jayaben Desai, the inspirational leader of the 1976-78 Grunwick Film Processing Factory Strike. Desai was recently recognised as one of the female figures to have had the biggest impact on women’s lives over the past 70 years, as part of BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour Power List.
Desai brought the issue of workplace exploitation and racism to the fore and challenged the perception of Asian women being inherently passive and docile. She had the measure of the most brutish and charmless of her managers, telling them: ‘What you are running here is not a factory, it is a zoo. But in a zoo there are many types of animals. Some are monkeys who dance on your fingertips, others are lions who can bite your head off. We are the lions, Mr. Manager!’