General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Business as Usual

Business as Usual is a 1987 British social realist drama film written and directed by Lezli-An Barrett, starring Glenda Jackson, John Thaw, and Cathy Tyson, about a Liverpool shop manageress who is sacked after confronting sexual harassment and fights for reinstatement through her union.¹ It was based on the real-life case of Audrey White, who in 1983 fought for reinstatement after reporting sexual harassment at a chain of Lady at Lord John boutiques in Liverpool.¹

Key fact	Detail
Director and writers	Written and directed by Lezli-An Barrett, co-written with Audrey White²
Release	September 1987 (UK); October 21, 1988 (United States)²
Running time	89 minutes²
Production companies	The Cannon Group, Film Four International, Channel Four Films²
Principal cast	Glenda Jackson (Babs Flynn), John Thaw (Kieran Flynn), Cathy Tyson (Josie Patterson)²
Award	Grand Prix, 1988 Créteil International Women's Film Festival³
Real-life basis	The 1983 Audrey White case at Lady at Lord John boutiques, Liverpool¹

Spoilers

Plot

Babs Flynn (Glenda Jackson) is the manager of a Liverpool boutique. The harassed clerk, Josie (Cathy Tyson), cannot afford to quit the job she has come to hate.⁴ Babs's husband Kieran (John Thaw), a former trade union convener, has been unemployed for three years after his factory closed, and the film follows the different approaches suggested by her unemployed husband and her left-wing son as she takes her cause to the union.⁵^•⁶ The picketing of the shop and Babs's fight for reinstatement become a national media event.⁴

Real-life basis and legal context

Barrett researched legal cases of workplace sexual harassment and interviewed victims and their families while developing the film. The Lady at Lord John case against a Liverpool boutique particularly interested her because it involved union action and support for the victim, and these cases and interviews became the basis for her adaptation and fictionalisation.⁷ Audrey White served as a consultant on the movie.⁸

The film emerged while the relevant law was still in flux: not until 1986 did Section 4A of the Public Order Act gain coverage of harassment, and Section 5 establish harassment as an offense, and Barrett sought to put on screen a case in which a union was involved.⁷ The Gender Equalities at Work project notes that the film was unusual for its time in highlighting how sexual and racial harassment overlapped for women of color, and the significance of age, low pay, and precarious employment in limiting women's options.¹

Production and funding

A woman-directed debut. Business as Usual was Lezli-An Barrett's first feature film.⁹ It was produced with co-financing from Channel 4 and Cannon, and Barrett stated that without the co-financing support of Channel 4 her film almost certainly would not have been made.¹⁰ Cannon's investment in the film was part of a total of £1.8 million across only two indigenous British productions, the other being Harry Hook's The Kitchen Toto.¹¹

Barrett acted as screenwriter and producer during development, screenwriter and director during production, and producer during release and distribution. Cannon Films went bankrupt weeks before the film's release, and when Barrett tried to place her next projects with British producers she found them unreceptive.¹² The film's female direction and production team were noted as unusual at the time and even now.¹

Cast and reception

The cast also included Mark McGann, Stephen McGann, Craig Charles, Stephen Dillane, and James Hazeldine.²^•¹² Glenda Jackson, who entered Parliament as a Labour MP in 1992, made this picture the second-to-last film of her career, quipping on set that she was rehearsing for her forthcoming job in Parliament.¹²

Kevin Thomas, reviewing for the Los Angeles Times in October 1988, called the film an unsparing account of what it was like to be working-class in Thatcher's England, praising Jackson's "crisp, warm portrayal of Babs, complete with Liverpudlian accent" and Barrett's handling of racism, police brutality, and anti-labor policies alongside sexual harassment.⁴ Hilary Mantel, writing in The Spectator, judged that the film suffered from "a fatal lack of tension".⁸ The film's gross in the United States was $28.0K.⁸

Legacy

The film won the Grand Prix at the 1988 Créteil International Women's Film Festival.³ It was later purchased as part of the MGM classic collection and more recently by the digital classic cinema distributor Park Circus, and it was selected for screening at festivals including Montreal, Melbourne, Sydney, London, Edinburgh, Los Angeles, and Berlin.¹² Critics have placed it in the British social-realist tradition centered on working-class women's stories, and it has been used as a case study of how women organized industrial action and how their involvement was perceived by men.⁹ The Gender Equalities at Work project describes it as a film that challenged the dominant narrative about sexual harassment and highlighted women's diverse voices and experiences.¹

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1980s › Released 1986 to 1989

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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