Red Ladder Theatre Company

So it is more than a month since the last blog and we start rehearsals for ‘Big Society!’ in a month – even typing that gives me slight butterflies – excitement and nerves and anticipation. The flyers have been printed and we’re starting to distribute them in all kinds of interesting ways. If you are a Red Ladder fan – or a Chumbawamba fan – or a Phill Jupitus fan – then please feel free to drop into the our offices in the basement of Yorkshire Dance and we’ll give you a handful of crisp new flyers to pass amongst your friends and family. They are beautiful pieces of Edwardian memorabilia and will be worth lots as collector’s items!

So the last month has been all about the Occupy Movement. The media has presented this in a very disparaging way – describing people occupying St Pauls and Finsbury Square as ‘so-called anti-capitalists’. The truth is of course much more interesting and I recommend you visit your local occupation and join in the discussions and consensus-driven debates. There is a small occupation in City Square in Leeds and an even smaller one in Bradford.  Today I went along to the Leeds Occupation for the 2pm general assembly – a standard meeting called across the globe at all occupations. It was pure theatre. When I arrived the discussions had begun and a very well dressed gentleman in a grey suit with polka dot tie and matching handkerchief was explaining how many by-laws the occupation was breaking. He was polite and sympathetic but his intention was to put a counter argument to, as he called it, ‘this form of protest’.

What I witnessed was remarkable and to be congratulated. Far from being attacked as opposition – the enemy, the occupiers welcomed his views politely. One member of the assembly began an aggressive counter-argument but was firmly silenced and reminded that in an assembly every voice is heard. Once the grey suit had finished speaking, his arguments were countered by an articulate young person who reminded him that no-one had ever succeeded in changing the law by obeying it: women would not have the vote without law-breaking suffragettes, Rosa Parks had to break the law and sit in a ‘whites only’ seat on the bus for black people to gain rights in the US. Mr Grey Suit nodded and accepted the argument. Later – as he walked away I chatted to him about how he felt. He said he was amazed by how welcoming and polite the occupiers had been. His respect for the movement had gone up ten-fold and he realised that this is not just a bunch of layabouts – it is a powerful movement. Over two thousand cities across the globe have similar occupations. In the US we are seeing violent evictions and virtually no violence from the protesters. The City of London Corporation (a throwback from Dick Whittington and the medieval trades guilds) has its own set of by-laws. They have put legal machinery into motion to evict the St Pauls Occupation. My view is this: Let them evict the occupations – but the movement is stronger than this. When one occupation is moved on another will spring up in its place. Naomi Klein wrote in The Guardian recently about how the difference between the Occupy Movement and all previous peaceful protests is that this one is taking root. It isn’t going to go away. But the corporate consumerist society is not going to let go easily. Today Twitter has told me that the final 10 defendants in the Fortnum and Mason case have been found guilty of ‘aggravated trespass’ and Fortnum and Mason will be seeking ‘damages’. UKUncut really upset some very rich and influential people when they took their tax avoidance protest to the poshest grocer’s in London. This mass arrest wasn’t about law breaking – it was about revenge and the suppression of our right to protest. The law protects the tax dodging wealthy – the 1% in other words.

There is no doubt that the powers that attempt to control us are very flustered and inevitably becoming more violent. Alongside the occupations there have been totally unreported actions by electricians and taxi drivers. Last week (November 9^th) when the students marched again, the media reported their protest but ignored the fact that the taxi drivers and electricians had also staged protests in central London but were prevented from supporting the students by the police. Electricians are being forced to sign contracts which will reduce their pay by 35% - and those who refuse, or who join a trade union in order to get support, are being blacklisted by the big building firms such as Balfour Beattie. The ‘sparks’ have been marching weekly throughout the last month – I don’t think I have seen a single report of their protests in the newspapers and certainly not on the BBC. More sinister still, on the day of the student marches (November 9^th) there is video evidence of undercover police snatch-arresting students violently and blatantly. This You Tube clip is redolent of Pinochet’s Chile  - and the thuggish aggression of the ‘officers’ is sickening. This is not democracy – this is intimidation and oppression.

Talking of students, this week I have given my annual ‘lecture’ to second year students at Leeds University’s School of Performance and Cultural Industries. I really enjoy doing this – I get to rant at them for 55 minutes about the history of Red Ladder and why we are the most fascinating theatre company in the land. They stare at me with ‘lecture face’ – which means they look like zombies – but I always get a handful of emails thanking me for being so ‘inspiring’. If that’s what you look like when you’re being inspired then what’s your ‘orgasm face’? I don’t actually ask them that – I’m asking them via the blog. Can you all send me photos of your faces showing ecstasy? All photos of such faces will be posted on our website (probably not actually).

Finally – ‘Big Society: A Music Hall Comedy’ starring Phill Jupitus and with live music by Chumbawamba opens at The City Varieties on January 18^th – and tickets are on sale now. I just wanted to make sure anyone reading was aware of this. By the way - the image above is of Eve The Escapologist - she allegedly has an affair with King Edward VII and her powerful love-making leads to regicide! (She shags him to death). Now buy your tickets before I give it all away!!