UK People’s Theatres: performing civic functions in a time of austerity

ABSTRACT

Brighton People’s Theatre and Slung Low are at the forefront of the contemporary people’s theatre movement in the United Kingdom. I examine these companies and the broader utility of a people’s theatre, historically concerned with working class representation and/or performances of civic unity, in the context of economic austerity and inequality. I assert that ideologies and practices of people’s theatres have the capacity to generate networks of solidarity and realise resilience as a mode of care and resistance. I explore how these practices directly intervene in urban governance reaffirming the potential of community-led economic, cultural, and social practices of resilience.

KEYWORDS:

• People’s theatre
• solidarity economies
• cultural democracy
• civic performance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 I would like to thank Jenny Hughes for her generous support in helping me think through some of the ideas around ‘the people’ presented here. I am also grateful for the thoughtful responses from peer reviewers and editors who have helped shape the discussion in this article.

2 I explore the particular artistic forms of people’s theatre’s in England in ‘Peopling the Theatre in a Time of Crisis’, in Performing Crisis in Contemporary British Theatre, ed. by Claire Wallace and Clara Escoda (forthcoming with Bloomsbury).

3 To read more about Amani People’s Theatre see: Valentina Baú (2018) ‘Participatory Communication, Theatre and Peace: Performance as a Tool for Change at the End of Conflict’, Communicatio, 44.1, 34–54.

4 Tidswell was one of the club’s members who participated in Brett Chapman’s documentary film, Standing in the Rain, about Slung Low’s move to the Holbeck.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah Bartley

Sarah Bartley is a Lecturer Theatre and Performance at the University of Reading. She is a Research Assistant on the AHRC Funded project ‘Clean Break: Women, Theatre, Organisation and the Criminal Justice System’ and recently published her monograph Performing Welfare: Applied Theatre, Unemployment, and Economies of Participation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).