Copyright

Paul Farmer

Published On

2023-09-27

Page Range

pp. 61–66

Language

  • English

Print Length

6 pages

4. Street Theatre and Cabaret

  • Paul Farmer (author)
Street theatre is another core activity of A39 and has a strong influence on our developing performance style. We use the same material and attitude to develop a cabaret act. Political and satirical songs are interspersed with more avant garde performance pieces.
A39’s earnings through street performances are vitally necessary. We have no money and no financial support. Funding officers see A39 as at best an inconvenient irrelevance, at worst a threat to a carefully rationalised status quo. We reject many of their assumptions, including what we perceive as the Thatcherite privileging of production values. Unable to afford a van, we must use props and set that can share Lucy’s car with us.
On 3 March 1985, the great Miners’ Strike ends and the miners go back to work without a deal. The winter has been hard. Soon the pit closures will begin, and will continue till there is all but nothing left to close. A39 feels a burning need to avenge; and we carry on working towards the debut of One & All!

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’.