We Share the Same Sky

Banner’s new show, We Share the Same Sky, is now on tour.

The show is based on the real-life stories and experiences of migrant workers, refugees and others who have come to the UK from other countries.

The project has been developed in South Yorkshire, with support from the Academy for Community Leadership based at Northern College near Barnsley, where the company worked with Afghani refugees, asylum seekers and campaigners, and in the Handsworth district of Birmingham, with support from Urban Living, where we worked with African-Caribbean and Asian communities and Polish migrant workers.

These two units are being augmented with other material about developments in Latin America and, in particular, in Venezuela, where the reforming government of Hugo Chavez, with enormous popular working-class support, is using oil revenues for the benefit of the poor and dispossessed.

For more information and bookings email the Banner office or ring 0845 458 1909.

We Share the Same Sky has been supported by the Academy for Community Leadership, Arts Council England, the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust, Birmingham City Council, the Sir Barry Jackson Trust, the Unity Theatre Trust and Urban Living.

Banner's Anti-Racist Work
Banner has created shows challenging racism from its earliest days. In 1974 the company developed and performed the Race Show and in 1977 toured The Great Divide, a show highlighting the activities of the National Front. And in 1995 the company produced Sweat Shop, a show exposing the exploitation of South Asian women workers in Smethwick in the West Midlands.

In 2001 Banner worked with the Fire Brigades Union and its black and ethnic minority section, b@em, to explore the extent of racism and institutional racism in the UK fire service and developed Black and White in the Red, a show (with accompanying CD), which toured fire stations as part of a racism awareness training programme.

Then, in 2002/3 the company developed Migrant Voices, a show based on the real-life experience of Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish asylum seekers and refugees, which has toured from 2003 to 2006.

In 2005/6 another production Wild Geese looked at migration from the point of view of migrants, intertwining the stories of Irish nurses from the 1950s, Asian textile workers from the 1960s, refugees in the 1980s and Chinese cockle-pickers in 2003/4.

Most recently, Strangers in Paradise Circus was based on the real-life experience of asylum seekers and refugees in Birmingham in order to challenge racism and the spread of racist attitudes.

Popular Education

During February and March the company is undertaking a series of workshop-based activities – in Newcastle upon Tyne for Unison as part of the union’s anti-racist strategy, in Birmingham with support from Urban Living, a housing renewal and regeneration agency and in Eastern England for the Fire Brigades Union and in the West Midlands with the Workers Educational Association.

This block of educational work is largely a new area of activity for the company. In December last year Banner secured a £5k grant from Arts Council England to develop popular education techniques for use in schools and with trade unions.

Don Bouzek, artistic director of Ground Zero Productions in Edmonton, Canada, led the workshops, supported by Warwick University Research Fellow Jacqueline Contré.

The company is interested in hearing from adult, community and trade union educationalists who may wish to collaborate with the company in this kind of educational activity.

For more information and bookings email the Banner office or ring 0845 458 1909.

1st of May Band

Banner Theatre's 1st of May Band builds on the company's 30-year tradition of working in the trade union movement, from the NUM to the NUJ and from UCATT to Unison. We are the only theatre company in Britain with a dynamic cultural commitment to the trade union movement and offer fast-moving, hard-edged, relevant entertainment for rallies, socials, conferences and educational schools.

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