Copyright

Paul Farmer

Published On

2023-09-27

Page Range

pp. 11–26

Language

  • English

Print Length

16 pages

1. A Tour through the Miners’ Strike

  • Paul Farmer (author)
I start a professional arts career by accident, driving an underpowered bus around the lanes, trunk roads and motorways of Cornwall and England to transport Miracle Theatre, a small-scale Cornish theatre company on a tour of an adaptation of Macbeth and a children’s show called The Joke Machine. Thatcherism is putting to death the countercultural tradition that has formed the cultural ecosystem of alternative theatre practice, and the effects of the physical exhaustion that is the result of a gruelling schedule are exacerbated by a growing awareness of the 1984/85 Miners’ Strike, leading some of us to the conclusion that our efforts are misdirected and that we need to participate in some way in the conflict in the coalfields.

Contributors

Paul Farmer

(author)
Associate Lecturer at Falmouth University

Paul Farmer first worked in Cornish arts as an actor/musician/bus driver with Miracle Theatre, then co-founded A39 Theatre Group, later becoming artistic director. As a freelance playwright he wrote a number of plays for Kneehigh Theatre Company and for Cornish community events and celebrations. During the mid-late 1990s Farmer was one of those who established the Cornish film industry, as a writer, director and producer. An increasingly experimental film practice would lead to a number of projects exploring digital image work in a literary context. He was a founder member and company manager of the live literature collective Scavel An Gow, then one of the three artists who represented Cornwall in the European Regions of Culture initiative, leading into work in a fine art context in performance, moving image and installation. He holds an Honours degree in Theatre from Dartington College of Arts and a Masters in Fine Art: contemporary practice from University College Falmouth. From 2014 to 2022 he was a lecturer in film and theatre at Falmouth University. In 2000 he was made a Bard of Gorsedh Kernow ‘for services to Cornish arts’.