Strangers in Paradise Circus

From November 2005 to March 2007 Banner Theatre developed a new multimedia documentary theatre production, Strangers in Paradise Circus, based on the stories of asylum seekers in Birmingham and Solihull.

The company was awarded contracts by Birmingham & Solihull Learning Skills Council as part of the Arts strand of the ASPIRE Development Partnership to part-fund the production, with approximately £70k of funds from the ESF’s Equal Programme.

The company also secured £105k match funding from Arts Council England, the Baring Foundation, Birmingham City Council, Lloyds TSB Foundation and a range of trade unions and other trusts and foundations.

The company gave 15 free performances of the production to community and school audiences in the Aston, Billesley, Castle Vale, Chelmsley Wood, Great Barr, Hamstead, Handsworth, Kings Norton, Ladywood, Moseley, Northfield, Perry Barr, Sheldon, Sparkhill and Turves Green districts of Birmingham and Solihull during March and April 2007 (with an aggregate audience of 1,445 people).

At several of the performances the company undertook workshops and discussions about the issues raised by the production. It also produced a DVD, based on material from the production, for educational use with schools and colleges.

In developing the production, Banner consulted with numerous refugee community organisations and individual asylum seekers and refugees from a range of countries, including Albania/Kosovo, Afghanistan, Congo Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Iraq, Ivory Coast,Kurdistan, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

The performing company of four included two refugees,from Congo and Iraqi Kurdistan respectively. Audience responses were overwhelmingly positive.

Of a sample of 165 respondents (mainly in the 16–24 age range), 138 (83%) stated they were more sympathetic to the situation of asylum seekers and/or wanted to do something to improve their situation as a result of seeing the production.

This was especially encouraging since it indicates the production had a strong impact with younger audiences, providing them with information about asylum seekers which they would not otherwise easily have encountered.