The Future Makers

Banner Theatre is working with UNITE the Union, UNISON and the General Federation of Trade Unions, to develop a 40 minute in-depth video ballad production ‘The Future Makers’, which will focus on young people’s dreams and frustrations about their future in the current era. The production will fuse video interviews, with music, song and drama and will tour to youth, union and community audiences across the UK. The show will be linked with popular education workshops and will be flexible in format designed for performance in a wide variety of locations including youth and community centres, union educational courses, rallies and conferences.

‘The Future Makers’ will be based on in-depth video interviews with young people who use youth services, members of UNITE, UNISON and other unions, and young people in the wider community. It will also include interviews with the emerging new generation of activists: student organisers who helped to build the magnificent student movement of university, sixth form and school students in autumn 2010 - young people protesting at the closure of youth and community facilities and young activists involved in emerging protest groups such as UK Uncut.

This government’s policies towards young peoples’ services are having devastating effects on their present and future lives, with the axing of youth services across the UK. Youth unemployment is now approaching 1 million, double the national average. Rather than demonising young people as ‘feral’, ‘mindless thugs’ whose actions are indicative of a wider ‘moral collapse', the show will seek to explore how young peoples’ insights into their own lives can provide the basis for a production that engages young people in creating a more hopeful and supportive future for themselves and others. The production will build on Banner’s research and knowledge base developed in creating its current union sponsored musical documentary, ‘Fighting the Cuts’, which focuses on the multiple effects of the government’s draconian cuts on public sector services.

If you are interested in booking 'The Future Makers', please contact us on 0845 458 1909 or email mailout@bannertheatre.co.uk

Fighting the Cuts

The Con-Dem government have launched a major attack on Britain’s welfare state, threatening the jobs and living standards of millions of working people.

Whose crisis? They claim that the national deficit demands massive cuts in our public services. The truth is neo-liberal governments throughout the world created the crisis, allowing the global banking system to career out of control in its unfettered pursuit of profit.

Who will pay? Not the fat cats. As usual, they expect ordinary working people to pay with the most savage cuts that this country has seen since the 1930s.

Our answer? Resistance!

Banner Theatre’s 1st of May Band is touring Fighting the Cuts!, a multimedia cabaret of songs, music, comedy and video. The Band delivers a punchy soundscape of reggae, rap, flamenco, folk and blues to lay bare the real story behind the crisis, and support the campaign to defend our welfare state.

See Banner's 1st of May Band performing a song from "Fighting the Cuts" at the Right to Work demonstration on Sun 3 Oct outside the Tory party conference in Birmingham.

The 1st of May Band is touring to venues and communities, and at rallies and demonstrations, across the country. See our website at www.bannertheatre.co.uk for full details of our tour.

To book the Band, phone 0845 458 1909, or email info@bannertheatre.co.uk

We Share the Same Sky

Banner is touring We Share the Same Sky throughout 2010.

We Share the Same Sky looks at migration and the world of work in the context of the global recession. Using video interviews, digital media and new music and song, it entwines the stories of three visitors to Britain:

* Ali from Afghanistan, who fled the Taliban and came to England in search of safety;
* Natalya from Poland, where unemployment had been spiralling, came to England in search of work; and
* Edenis from Venezuela, who compares life in Britain with the popular revolutionary changes taking place in his home country.

The show weaves these stories into a rich tableau and asks what control we have over our working lives in the crisis-ridden 21st-century global economy, and whether the economic downturn that now threatens heralds a new period of struggle, resistance and change.

Funding for the show was from the Academy for Community Leadership, the Amiel & Melburn Trust, Arts Council England West Midlands, Birmingham City Council, the Communication Workers Union, the Fire Brigades Union, the Sir Barry Jackson Trust, Unison, the Unity Theatre Trust and Urban Living.

We are still taking bookings for this show and welcome enquiries from anyone interested in booking a performance. For more information and bookings email the Banner office or ring 0845 458 1909.

With Eyes Wide Open

“Blending members’ stories with music and song” – ULearn

With Eyes Wide Open is a new Banner production, developed with UNISON, the public sector trade union, and highlights the vital importance of education in helping to develop confidence and personal fulfillment amongst union representatives, as well as helping encourage increased activism in the union.

This 30-minute show combines original music and song with archive film, digital imagery and video interviews with UNISON members and officers, to create a powerful and highly entertaining piece of trade union entertainment.

The show was premiered in the West Midlands at UNISON branches in Coventry, Telford, Wolverhampton and Worcester during Adult Learners Week 2010, and was also performed at this year’s UNISON national conference in Bournemouth in June.

The show is now available for booking by UNISON branches throughout the United Kingdom. Contact the Banner office for details.