Latest News: June 2011

Fighting the Cuts | Embedded with the Bankers | Popular Education | Banner DVDs

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

“A forthright production on the media’s role in the financial crisis” – Tim Gopsill, former editor of The Journalist

In 2009 Banner worked with the Campaign for Press & Broadcasting Freedom to develop Embedded with the Bankers, a 25-minute show, based on interviews with leading journalists like Paul Mason, Nick Davies and Nick Jones, about why the media failed to alert the British public to the impending banking crisis before it happened.

The show, which was performed at the National Union of Journalists’ annual delegate meeting in November 2009, explores the seedy world of corporate US banking and changes to the British newspaper industry that have undermined the strong tradition of investigative journalism.

The show is available for booking throughout 2010.   Contact the Banner office for more details.

Alongside its performances Banner also does workshop sessions with trade unions and schools and colleges, combining performance-based work with popular education techniques, which draw on the experience and knowledge of workshop participants.

We regularly do training schools and other work for the Fire Brigades Union, the GMB, UNISON, USDAW (the shopworkers’ union), as well as with West Midlands’ trade unionists, through a partnership with the West Midlands Workers’ Educational Association.

If your trade union is interested in booking Banner for educational workshops or a performance, please contact us on 08045 458 1909 or by email.

This summer we have released a DVD version of our 2009 production, We Share the Same Sky. The 90-minute video features stories of globalization and the positive social changes taking place in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez.

Banner also has DVDs of several of its recent productions, including Wild Geese (developed with asylum seekers, refugees and the Transport & General Workers Union; Burning Issues (a show marking the 25th anniversary of the 1984/5 Miners Strike) and “They Get Free Mobiles, Don’t They?”, a show exposing the negative myths about asylum seekers and refugees.

Each costs £12.00 including postage and packing. For more details contact the Banner office.