Project Type: Past Projects

In 1948 the NHS was established, offering health care free for all at the point of delivery.

In 2018 the NHS is up for auction in a ‘free for all’ to private health corporations.

NHS crisis: Too many old people, drunks, immigrants?

Or a 30-year old plot to kill the NHS?

 NHS safe in Tory hands?

Or the corporate master plan: Health Care USA?

Lazy doctors and nurses?

Or a media onslaught to undermine the NHS?

 999 Call for the NHS!

Powerful songs, dynamic music, unique video footage and moving storytelling.

Free For All pays tribute to a health service still rated the most efficient and successful in the world. Based on interviews with a wide range of health professionals, our show celebrates their passionate dedication to a publicly owned health care system free for all at the point of delivery.

Fight Back Now!

Free For All gives centre stage to the tidal wave of campaigning organisations fighting to defend the NHS from the corporate auction block.

Join the Fight Back!

Book Banner Theatre!

 “Some say the NHS is Labour’s greatest achievement, I agree. In its 70^th year the NHS should be celebrated, as must the generations of NHS workers who have served with dedication. The NHS is far from safe in Tory hands. Our children and grandchildren will never forgive us if we fail to fight for its survival. Banner Theatre brings to life all that could be lost if we do not fight back. And fight back we will.”  

Len McCluskey, General Secretary, Unite the Union

Touring from November 2018

Photographs from Free For All, Belper, Derbyshire, 13 November 2018. Credits: Tony Fisher

Commissioned by the Mechanics Centre Trust to celebrate the founding of the TUC and 150 years of union struggle.

In 1868 workers were fighting for union recognition, the end of casual labour, and improvements in working conditions.

Sounds familiar?

In the 150 years since, the trade union movement has led the fight for workers’ rights. The 8-hour day, health and safety at work, equality in the workplace… Spirit of 1868 celebrates them all!

Exhilarating folk, blues, punk and reggae rhythms drive the stories of workers from all walks of life, standing together in solidarity across a century and a half of picket lines and protests.

“No other cultural workers that I can think of in Britain have for so long and so consistently and with such moving artistry expressed the humour, culture, aspirations and politics of the working class.”  Doug Nicholls, General Secretary, GFTU

“A brilliant mix of music, film, humour and politics. It’s a terrific way of reminding us why we need to keep angry, keep organising and keep fighting”. Jon Berry, Secretary, St Albans TUC

“Incredible! Taught me so much about the history of trade unions, opened my eyes to the importance of solidarity internationally too. Humbled by those before us”. NEU Student Member

“Absolutely fantastic! Really, really enjoyed it! Music was amazing. Showed the power of trade unions over the years.” Ellie Clarke, NEU Student Member

“Strengthened my views and made the fire in my belly stronger to fight the fight for all”. Martin Shaw, Care Assistant, Bolton

“Absolutely loved it. Reinforced my belief we stand on the shoulders of giants.” Jo Pitchford, GMB

 Spirit of 1868 – A stirring dramatisation of some of the struggles, protests and moments of resistance that shaped our past and our present!

Touring from 2 June 2018

A stirring, stomping, roaring celebration of grassroots resistance to those who plot to tear apart our welfare state, rip up our environmental protections and impose ever more draconian neoliberal misery on millions!

In the wake of the huge success of Labour’s election campaign, which focused on hope and an end to austerity, Rise, Like Lions! weaves inspirational stories of workers in struggle with music, song and video.

The show exposes a 30-year plot to privatise the NHS and stages the fight to keep it in public hands. It dramatises the successful strikes of teaching support staff in Derby and Durham, and captures the spirit and defiance of the anti-fracking campaigners at the Preston New Road site in Lancashire.

With its thundering mix of folk, reggae and ska, Rise, Like Lions! brings you songs, stories and video scoops from the frontline of the class war. So, switch off the fake news and tune in to the real news from Banner Theatre!

Produced with financial support from NEU (NUT), UNISON, Unite, USDAW, and the PCS.

TOURING FROM THE 27 OCTOBER 2017

1 Rise Like Lions front

In 2012, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) went on strike to fight for public sector education. They empowered their members and mobilised parents, students and the wider community. The campaign was hugely successful with hundreds of thousands of vocal and active supporters taking part in nine days of mass pickets, creative sit-ins and demonstrations in 840 schools across the city. The strike was won and the organising strategies that were used became a blueprint for other strikes in both the US and the UK.

Weaving together music, song and inspirational video footage and interviews, Chicago: The Great Teachers’ Strike provides compelling lessons for both educational and broader public sector resistance here in the UK. 

The production toured across the UK between 2016-18. In 2019/20 the production was filmed and is available as a DVD.

“Fantastic, empowering, goosebumps the whole time!”Anna Quick, NUT Student Member  

“Changed my opinion completely Ex-tory! Fantastic music and story, brilliant lyrics.” Steve Scott, NUT Student Member

The company thanks the NEU for its financial support, all the Banner performers, technicians and administrators, as well as South and City College Birmingham and their staff and students for their work on the DVD.

“I simply can’t speak highly enough of Banner Theatre! A brilliant mix of music, film, humour and politics. It’s a terrific way of reminding us why we need to keep angry, keep organising and keep fighting. Bring everyone you can, old and young – particularly young – to see this show.”   Jon Berry, Secretary, St Albans TUC

In A Right State!

The production unpicks the government’s current neo-liberal austerity agenda with a particular focus on the NHS. It celebrates the struggles of past generations who fought to create the welfare state, and of current generations, such as the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign, who are fighting to defend our services from the latest Tory surgical attacks.

In A Right State! also includes dynamic stories of defiance from disability campaigners in Cardiff and anti-bedroom tax campaigners in Birmingham. These interviews, interwoven with powerful, poignant songs and images of struggle, offer an antidote to the Tory Blitzkrieg of cuts and privatisation.

The show is continually being updated as events unfold.

In a Right State! is flexible and can be tailored to fit slim wallets and wide contexts, including rallies, community socials, union branch meetings and education courses.

Produced with financial support from UNISON, PCS and the NUJ.

Lies, Damned Lies and Academies follows the brilliant campaign fought by parents and teachers against the imposition of forced academy status on Downhills primary school in Haringey. The show combines video footage, songs, music and story telling to expose Michael Gove’s attempt to sack the democratically elected Downhills school governing body, remove local authority control and impose academy status under the auspices of Lord Harris of Peckham, boss of Carpetright and owner of the Harris Academy chain. 

Banner’s latest production asks the big question about what kind of education system we want for our children: One that teaches children to think and question the world they live in, or one that subjugates their needs to the requirements of big business?

The production was financially supported by the NUT.

Subversive Satire and Riotous Rhythms!

“Wonderful, passionate and committed, and really funny too.” Jimmy McGovern.

Organising a social, rally, festival or conference?
Then book The First of May Band!

Tailor-made music and songs to suit any occasion, whether you need two musicians for your local pub, or the big sound of a full band for a rally in Trafalgar Square.

Banner’s First of May Band brings its thundering mix of folk, reggae, blues and ska, with songs of celebration and tales of resistance.

Banner Theatre has interviewed countless ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, and turned their moving stories into songs that reflect the experiences of communities ranging from Kurdish asylum seekers to NHS campaigners and disabled activists.

“The songs are all truly original and catchy, guaranteed to get you either bouncing off your seat or sobbing into your hanky.” Charley Allan, The Morning Star

Fronted by Dave Rogers (singer/songwriter, activist and founder member), the Band digs the dirt on the rich and powerful with songs that include the often-requested anthems I’d Rather Shovel Shit than be an Entrepreneur, Ballad of the Tax Dodger and Rise, Like Lions!

The First of May Band also showcases the remarkable talents of a local pool of  musicians that we have worked with for many years: the fabulous singer Rosie Cartlidge; Vince Pryce on keyboards and bass; John Sanderson on saxophone, flute and clarinet; Damon Wilding on drums and percussion; Fred Wisdom on guitar; Mahendra Patel on drums and percussion; and Mike Bethel on guitar and mandolin.

“Thank you for your brilliant performance at our strike rally. You really made the event something special and many members have enthused about the performance and told us what a difference you made to the day.”  Kit Armstrong, Regional Secretary, Midlands NUT

No matter who you are or what you do, The First of May Band has songs for you!

To book the Band, contact Stuart Brown

Tel: 07891 701133

Email: bannerauto2013@gmail.com

Austerity, cuts, joblessness, bedroom tax, benefit changes, tuition fees – it’s not a pretty world in 2013 for our younger generation!

Banner Theatre’s new production, The Future Makers, is a 70-minute multimedia explosion of sounds, songs, beats, rhymes, drama and cutting edge filmmaking.

Hear the views and opinions of young people as they struggle to make sense of a world collapsing around them, and their fight to save vital youth services in their local communities. Follow Tom and Ali’s journey as they join the growing opposition against the government’s austerity programme and uncover the real facts behind the tabloid headlines. Are we really ‘all in this together’ as the politicians claim? Is society going to be a fairer place once the cuts have been imposed?

Rather than demonising young people as ‘feral’, ‘mindless thugs’ whose actions are indicative of a wider ‘moral collapse’, The Future Makers powerfully demonstrates how young peoples’ insights into their own lives can create a more hopeful and supportive future for our society.

This show takes Banner’s proud tradition of “actuality theatre”, performance based on the voices of real people from our communities, and thrusts it into the 21st century with a bang!

The Future Makers is touring to youth and community venues throughout the summer, autumn and winter of 2013 and Spring 2014.

The Future Makers has been funded by Arts Council England, UNITE The Union, UNISON and the GFTU.

The Future Makers (song)

Through interveiws with key experts – TV journalist and writer Paul Mason, author and journalist Nick Davies and former BBC political correspondent Nick Jones – ‘Embedded with the Bankers’ charts the structural changes in UK newspapers, which have undermined the strong British tradition of investigative journalism.

The show asks the question: Why didn’t the UK media warn the British public about the impending banking collapse and recession?

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.
• 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.

“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.

Banner completed its touring of “They get free mobiles . . . don’t they?” in December 2008, following a successful visit to the Bergen International Festival in Norway in October, a tour of schools in County Durham in November, sponsored by Unison, and 87 performances in total.

The show combined theatre, live music and song with video interviews and archive film to tell the stories of some of Britain’s newest arrivals, featuring Nellie from Zimbabwe, Michael from the Congo and Sherzad from Kurdistan. Using musical styles from rock, rap and reggae to blues, folk and jazz “They get free mobiles…don’t they?” highlighted the human stories of people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and challenged the myths, lies and prejudice surrounding the search for sanctuary in the United Kingdom.

An excellent performance which conveyed a powerful message effectively and with great humanity. Thanks! – University of Northampton Equalities Officer
Excellent performance. Brilliant script. Content well researched and delivered.
Congratulations to all involved – Assistant Manager, Volunteer Centre
I thought the show was fantastic. It would do well in schools and bigger theatres.
Very powerful and moving – Retired Teacher

The show received funding from Arts Council England, the Baring Foundation, Birmingham City Council, the William A Cadbury Trust, the Fire Brigades Union, Lloyds TSB Foundation, the Professional Footballers Association, the PRS Foundation, the Transport Salaried Staffs Association and the Woodward Charitable Trust.

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.

Banner Theatre – one of the few remaining touring companies specialising in community and political theatre – is celebrating its thirtieth birthday this spring. The party kicked off with a two-day event at the University of Central England and Birmingham Library Theatre, and is marked by the publication of a songbook Singing the Changes, and the launch of a CD which includes songs from the new show, Wild Geese, which had its first performance on 8th April.

In keeping with the company’s long-standing tradition of working with excluded or disadvantaged communities, Wild Geese is based on stories of exile and migration – and includes material about the Chinese cockle-pickers in Morecambe, refugees working in Canary Wharf and Iranian asylum seekers in the West Midlands.

To organise the birthday event on 8th and 9th April, Banner joined forces with the University of Central England’s Department of Media and Communication, the Bournemouth University Media School’s Centre for Broadcasting History Research, the Charles Parker Archive and Birmingham City Archives.

Organisers were delighted that the weekend of debate, discussion, exhibition and performance, which combines the birthday celebration for Banner with this year’s Charles Parker Day, attracted a broad range of people with an interest in the role of the arts in supporting and stimulating social and political change.

” Banner Theatre has spent the last thirty years working with the trade union and labour movement, with the real-life experience of working-class people at the heart of all our productions,” said Dave Rogers, Banner’s artistic director and a founder member of the company. “Over the last three decades we have played an important part in helping some of society’s most disenfranchised communities to have a voice and it is fantastic to be able to celebrate that with this exciting event.

Dr Paul Long, Deputy Course Director in the Department of Media and Education at UCE said they were delighted to support the event and were looking forward to a lively and successful 48 hours.

“This event will both celebrate Charles Parker’s work and legacy – and the traditions of documentary theatre, film and radio to which he contributed – and the first 30 years of Banner Theatre. Charles Parker was a founder member of Banner Theatre and this event will give us the chance to mark the contribution he made and the continuing importance of the challenging and entertaining performances developed by Banner throughout their long and successful history.”

Over the years, Banner has attracted support and praise from throughout the labour and trade union movement, as well as from the worlds of theatre, music and art. Tony Benn, for example, a longstanding supporter, has described Banner as ” An inspiration to everyone who believes in social justice and peace,” and NATFHE General Secretary, Paul Mackney, described their performances as ” First class songs and satire rooted in the experience of ordinary people.”

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).

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.

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

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).

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.