New Blood, Bare Bones at Exeter Bike Shed Theatre brings together a series of performances focusing on modern responses to the fight for women’s suffrage early in the twentieth century. As well as performance, debate and discussion are promised.
I’m Suffraging by Callum Elliot-Archer
While at school we learned about the important struggle that the Suffragettes went through at the early end of the 20th century. we learned that they were fighting for the right to vote in political elections. We learned that this was an important right – one worth dying for. But we never learned why it was so important. When I left school at the age of 17, I knew nothing about our political system, the differences between the parties, how the vote worked and why I should care. As a result, I labelled myself Labour as my dad’s label and when it came time to vote, I just didn’t.
Common Sense by Tom Nicholas
A baby has been born. This baby will one day be king or queen by the grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of his/her realms and territories, king or queen, head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. But why, in twenty first century britain, should the highest office in the land be decided by birthright? And, when we’ve fought so hard for democracy, do we let this amomaly continue? This tear;s prince is a mash-up of monologue, flag-waving and the obligatory Sex Pistols.
Slippage by Hannah Townsend and Shiona Morton
It is the week of the election in May 2010. All over the country British people are being lambasted by the media. Many are consumed by the political shennanigans, talking and debating wherever and whenever they get the chance but some are not. Slippage is a piece about the people who didn’t put an “x” in the box, a glipse into the lives of those who somehow slid into disenfranchisement. It slips from the poetic to the everyday, from one voice to another, allowing those who are usually silent to speak.
Exeter Bike Shed Theatre. 23rd to 27th July. 7.45 p.m. Tickets £5.
http://www.bikeshedtheatre.co.uk/
Martin Hodge