Banner Theatre Past Projects

Past Projects Banner has been producing radical theatre productions since 1973. Here are details about some of them. Other recent projects include the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the company, and an educational CD-ROM We Are Here. Click here for a complete historical list.		CDs and cassettes of music, songs and actuality from several shows are available from the Banner office (click here for details).
Strangers in Paradise Circus In 2006 and early 2007, Banner worked within the Aspire Development Partnership to develop a new production based on the real-life experience of asylum seekers and refugees in Birmingham in order to challenge racism and the spread of racist attitudes. The resulting show, Strangers in Paradise Circus, toured a range of community venues in Birmingham and Solihull in spring 2007, including performances in Aston, Billesley, Castle Vale, Chelmsley Wood, Great Barr, Hamstead, Handsworth, Kings Norton, Moseley, Northfield, Perry Barr, Sheldon, Sparkhill and Turves Green. Strangers in Paradise Circus was part funded by the European Social Fund through the Community Initiative EQUAL, and has also been supported by Arts Council England, the Baring Foundation, Birmingham City Council, the William A Cadbury Trust, the Lloyds TSB Foundation for England & Wales, the Professional Footballers Association, the PRS Foundation for New Music, the Transport Salaried Staffs Association and the Woodward Charitable Trust.
Book cover for Singing the Changes	Banner Theatre's 30th Anniversary 2004 marked Banner’s thirtieth anniversary with a programme of special activities. - a songbook / social history, featuring 80 songs by Dave Rogers from Banner’s shows - a new CD of Banner songs, featuring Jilah Bakshayesh (vocals, fiddle, bass), Charlie Davis (rap vocals), Dave Rogers (vocals, guitar) and Fred Wisdom (vocals, guitar). - an event to mark the company's thirty years on the 8th and 9th April 2005. More details...	Anniversary brochure
We Are Here CD-ROM cover	We Are Here (because You Were There) is an educational CD-ROM on immigration and asylum in Britain. It introduces the issues and connects specific experiences with a range of contexts. Suitable for schools (key stages 3/4), FE, community and informal settings, it includes lesson/workshop plans and is PC or Mac compatible. This was a joint project with Virtual Migrants. Revised version published 2003. "As teachers, we know we have a responsibility to dispel the myths and lies that are gathering around immigration and asylum. Here is an excellent resource to help us do just that. We Are Here provides accessible, well supported and thought provoking material for Secondary Schools and youth groups. All young people should see and use this - all schools should buy a copy." Jane Nellist, Coventry Teacher and NUT Secretary See also review on the Global Dimension website	The CD-ROM is available from the Banner office, price £12 (£15 for institutions) plus £2 post and packing. An order form can be downloaded either in PDF or Word format.
Local Stories / Global Times (2002/06) From 2002 to 2006 Banner worked on this major project exploring the impact of globalization on different communities in Britain. Phase One, Migrant Voices, was based on residencies with Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish asylum seekers in two of Britain’s older industrial communities - Sandwell in the West Midlands and Salford in Greater Manchester. Phase Two, Burning Issues, was a project with former mining communities in the Midlands, Lancashire, Yorkshire and South Wales, exploring the legacy of the 1984/5 Miners Strike and looking at global changes in the coal industry. Phase Three has been Wild Geese, a show based on stories of exile and migration as they have affected Irish, African/Caribbean, African, South Asian and Chinese migrants and refugees.
	Wild Geese (2004/6) Wild Geese is a song and video ballad of exile and migration, using live music and video to combine the stories of Irish nurses, Asian textile workers, Iranian refugees and Chinese cockle-pickers and to highlight the contradictions in the position of migrant workers, often trapped in some of the poorest jobs, which no-one else will do, but vilified in parts of the media. Wild Geese has been supported by Arts Council England, Birmingham City Council, Birmingham Community Empowerment Network, Comic Relief, the European Social Fund (Equal Programme) and the Sir Barry Jackson Trust. Music, songs and actuality from the Wild Geese production are included in the Wild Geese CD available from the Banner office (click here for details).	original Wild Geese flyer Wild Geese CD cover
Fred Wisdom, Dave Rogers and Jilah Bakhshayesh in Burning Issues	Burning Issues (2003/5) Phase Two of Local Stories / Global Times was a show to mark the twentieth anniversary of the 1984/5 Miners Strike, developed with former mining communities in Yorkshire, Lancashire, the Midlands and South Wales. Funding for the production was from the Arts Council of England, the Arts Council of Wales Night Out Scheme, Stoke City Council and for research for the show from the Staffordshire Coalfields Community Chest. If you have broadband you might like to download a video clip of a sequence from the show by clicking here - but beware, it is a very large file (over 11MB)	Burning Issues flyer
Fred Wisdom and Charlie Davis performing Migrant Voices in Canada in May 2003	Migrant Voices (2002/6) Based on collaborations with Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish asylum seekers and refugees in the West Midlands and Greater Manchester, this is a hard-hitting show combining live performance and DVD technology. It toured extensively in England and Canada during 2003, 2004 and 2005 and is available for booking in 2006.. Music, songs and actuality from the Migrant Voices production are included in the Wild Geese CD available from the Banner office (click here for details).	Migrant Voices flyer
Fred Wisdom at West Midlands Fire Service Training School in Smethwick	Black and White in the Red (2000/2) A show which became part of fire service training to raise awareness within the service about institutional racism and stemming from three residencies with the Fire Brigades Union and its black and Asian section, B@em, The residencies were part of UK Year of the Artist 2000/1 and the show later toured fire stations throughout the United Kingdom. A CD of music, songs and actuality from Black and White in the Red is available from the Banner office (click here for details). .	Fred Wisdom & Dave Rogers
Reclaim the Future flyer	Reclaim the Future (2000) Reclaim the Future was a collaborative multimedia project celebrating cultural diversity made by young people from the West Midlands, El Salvador and the former East Germany. The show combined physical theatre, multimedia and world music to explore issues of race, equality and cultural identity in a world increasingly dominated by global corporations and consumerism.
Dave Rogers & Sophie Partington in Free for All	Free for All (1999/2000) Free for All was based on extensive video recordings with pioneers who fought to establish the original National Health Service, with present-day NHS workers and users, and with campaigners fighting to defend the service from privatization. The show revisited the hopes and dreams of 50 years ago to ask key questions about the future of this unique institution. Using song, drama, music and digital video technology, the show explored whether the original principle of the NHS – free for everyone – had become a different kind of “free-for-all”, involving transnational drug companies, private health care businesses and ever more elaborate schemes of privatization.	Free for All flyer
Fortress Europe CD	Fortress Europe (1998) A CD and cassette of actuality, music and songs - ranging from Irish jigs to Ivory Coast Zouglou - from Redemption Song and Criminal Justice are available from the Banner office (click here for details).
Firmin Ghali, Leon Koffi & Aidan Jolly in Redemption Song	Redemption Song (1997) Using physical theatre, political text, slides, recorded voices and music, Redemption Song linked stories from African asylum seekers, the British black experience and the Liverpool Dock Strike. In particular, it drew on the experience of Sita Camara, a political refugee from the Ivory Coast and told of her fight for civil and human rights, exposing the deceit and hypocrisy of Western governments, which claimed to champion democracy, while supporting oppressive regimes in third world countries. It examined British immigration policy and made links between racism in Britain and oppressive regimes throughout the world.
Dave Dale, Dave Rogers & Paula Boulton in Criminal Justice	Criminal Justice (1996) Criminal Justice exposed the erosion of civil liberties by the 1994 Criminal Justice Act and highlighted the resistance by a wide range of groups, which were adversely affected by it. The research team interviewed around 80 people affected by the legislation, ranging from Anti-M11 link road campaigners, disabled activists and “new-age” travellers through to gypsies, squatters and "Footballers against the CJA". The show used satire to illustrate the wider legal and political implications of the Act, intercut with song and recorded actuality portraying the experiences of groups affected by the legislation.
Dave Rogers in Sweat Shop	Sweat Shop (1995) Sweat Shop lifted the lid on Britain's early 1990s "economic recovery" and exposed the links between back-street sweatshop employers and the big brand name manufacturers. The show was based on over 70 interviews with hat makers in Luton, homeworkers in Sandwell, Nike shoe workers in Indonesia, and Levi Strauss machinists in San Antonio, Texas, and demonstrated how it is no longer possible to consider the rights of workers in Britain without considering the rights of workers in across the globe. In story and song, Sweat Shop took you on a journey across the world, and across 250 years of fighting back against low wages and inhuman working conditions. A cassette of music, songs and actuality from Sweat Shop is available from the Banner office (click here for details).	Dave Rogers, Helen MacDonald, Paula Boulton & Aidan Jolly in Sweat Shop
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