Reality writes

New Perspectives started making theatre in the East Midlands 35 years ago: 35 years that have seen extraordinary social, economic and demographic change. The company has remained true to its passion for reaching new audiences by touring new theatre writing into community venues. In its early days as a co-operative, touring out of Mansfield Arts Centre in the heart of the North Notts coalfield, the company addressed big political themes, and big writers cut their teeth talking directly to community audiences during a period dominated by the events surrounding the Miners’ Strike.

In the early 1990s, with a change in Arts Council England’s funding priorities, the emergence of rural touring schemes, and the addition of Lincolnshire to the East Midlands, the company’s focus shifted to making work for the region’s rural communities. New writing was still a significant feature, but the tone was gentler, with life in rural England perhaps viewed with John Major’s “long shadows on cricket grounds and warm beer” in mind. Five years ago, with the dust settling after the Countryside Alliance march on Westminster, we reviewed our approach to commissioning new theatre writing – considering how we might make work suitable for rural touring but nonetheless alive with the enquiring, campaigning spirit that had characterised our early years. What struck us when we paused to consider who we were actually making theatre for, was that the pace of social, economic and demographic change in rural England was as fast as anywhere in the country, and in some places, faster. This was the environment where a politically engaged theatre practice might find the next set of big themes. 

Working with established New Perspectives writer, Julie Wilkinson, we set out to develop a new approach. The first step was to frame a question – in this instance, ‘what is happening in Boston?’, since that market town has had an influx of EU migrant workers, and nobody was talking about the impact. Then came the research: criss-crossing the fens talking to migrant workers, local residents, Citizens Advice Bureau staff, trade-unionists, priests and politicians, seeking to understand the issues and searching for the narrative that might allow Julie to bring the issues to life on stage. Some months later, ‘On Saturdays This Bed Is Poland’, a play about three women from Eastern Europe, was ready. It is an unsettling portrait of what it really means to be a migrant worker in rural England at the start of the 21st century.

Lincolnshire County Council commissioned us to produce a version of the play for schools, ‘Mirka’s Story’, and so it was that Beata Majka, the Polish member of our acting company (who, when she first arrived in the UK, had worked in the fields and factories described in Julie’s play), found herself talking to classes of British school kids about what’s really happening in Boston. The classes included both the children of migrant workers and the children of ‘gangmasters’, the often unlicensed and unethical interface between employers and migrant labourers. We currently have writers exploring subjects including genetic engineering; the likely impact of global warming on farming; the way the Church is struggling to keep pace with change in rural communities; and the rise of the far right in rural politics – more new perspectives on the changing face of rural England.