Following our residency at Queen Mary University of London, we’ll be sharing our Tower-Hamlets-specific version of Gerrard Winstanley’s True and Righteous Mobile Incitement Unit both on campus (22nd March) and at Poplar Union (6th May), a great new venue in the borough.
Supported by Queen Mary and produced in partnership with Rua Arts, Mobile Incitement brings together songs and texts from 600 years of English rebelliousness, along with new material from the band, new writing by Alex Swift and the cast, material from East London residents, and the Mobile Incitement Unit itself – a portable installation by Andrew Bannister.
This is part of an ongoing project, initially a commission from Ovalhouse, in which we and The Black Smock Band join forces with local people (and of course the C17th radical Gerrard Winstanley) to create a series of uniquely local gig-theatre performances, retelling England’s neglected history of protest and dissent, and, in each place we visit, asking what it all means to people today.
We’ve been working at Queen Mary with theatre-maker Ali Campbell and some of his students to develop democratic, open ways to shape the piece so it reflects their concerns of local people, and their sense of history, as well giving us a chance to hear their stories. Since we imagine there can be no revolution without tea – at least not in England – we’re doing this through a series of tea parties. (Big thanks to Magic Me for helping us connect with people in the Tower Hamlets area!) If you’re coming to the Poplar Union performance, we’d like to invite you to come to the last of the current series of parties and share your thoughts on East London life, along with optional placard-making and protest-song writing.
22nd March, 3pm at Arts One, on Queen Mary’s Mile End campus. There’s a Facebook event here. It’s free but you need to reserve your place in advance via Ticketsource here.
6th May, at Poplar Union. Info and booking here. There’s a tea party at 1pm and a performance at 3pm. There’s a small fee for the performance, but it’s free if you come for the tea party and help us create a bespoke, local version of the performance. There’s also a Facebook event here.
We hope to see you there! We’re especially excited to be doing this piece in our home borough of Tower Hamlets, surely one of the most rebellious and dissenting areas of the country. It’s going to be special!
