Copyright

Paul Farmer

Published On

2023-09-27

Page Range

pp. 67–82

Language

  • English

Print Length

16 pages

5. Touring One & All!

  • Paul Farmer (author)
Chapter of: After the Miners’ Strike: A39 and Cornish Political Theatre versus Thatcher’s Britain: Volume 1(pp. 67–82)
The first performance of One & All! is at the Crypt Centre in Truro at the end of March 1985 before a small audience of members and friends. Then we set out on tour to other community initiatives, local Labour groups, and anyone else who might arrange a show. We decide we need to carry our own theatre lighting, but the cost is prohibitive so we come to an ingenious if slightly dangerous arrangement. The show evolves. Political theatre and cabaret turn out to work well in Cornwall–you can say anything you liked as long as you are entertaining.
An important part of A39 is its ‘hinterland’, its links to groups outside theatre. Initially this is composed of socialist and community groups, but it comes increasingly to include the Cornish cultural movement, a celebration and defence of communities, of the Cornish people’s relationships with work and with their part of the planet. These are too the causes for which the Miners’ Strike has been fought, so our commitment to this movement continues the struggle for which A39 was formed.
A report for the ‘Regional Arts Association’, South West Arts (SWA), that functions as an agency of the Arts Council, dismisses A39’s work, and A39 is never to form a working relationship with SWA. Instead we participate in the Enterprise Allowance Scheme that will give us each an income and A39 prepares to go–international!

Contributors

Paul Farmer

(author)
Associate Lecturer at Falmouth University
http://www.farmerart.co.uk/

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’.