Brighton and Hove Green Party this weekend launch a major campaign against austerity and government cuts with a series of street theatre performances across the centre of Brighton & Hove.
The campaign – Our City Our Future – will be spending the next year working with local communities, and those who use threatened council services, to demand the restoration by the government of £18m in local funding that has been axed this year alone, and to stop the series of further cuts, totalling £3.3bn nationwide, planned by both Conservative Chancellor George Osborne and his Labour counterpart Ed Balls.
The start of the campaign, this Friday and Saturday, will feature a pop-up musical extravaganza appearing on streets around the city to engage shoppers and passers-by. Green street theatre “Shout It Out” – specially commissioned by the party from innovative writer/director Michael Wicherek of Box Clever Theatre – will run for 15 minutes and will appear six times over the two days (see schedule below).
Together with accomplished professional actors Liv Spencer and Matt Rutherford, it features a ukelele and double-bass, seaside postcards, sticks of rock and rockabilly, as well as old people’s homes, cycle lanes and early years centres. George Michael and George Formby make musical appearances alongside George Osborne in this entertaining, irreverent and angry piece of theatre that asks:
- Why do Council services matter to you and your city?
- Is it OK that the Government starves them of funding so they cannot survive?
- Do we want to do something about it?
As passers-by stop to watch this unique pop-up spectacle, Green supporters will be on hand to talk to them about the financial crisis – engineered in Whitehall – which now threatens Brighton & Hove.
Campaign organiser Richard Stanton (who is also a prospective Green council candidate for Queens Park) said: “As they enjoy its sharp-edged wit, people will know this is about their right to determine what kind of city they live in. We’re sure many will want to ‘shout it out’ too, supporting the campaign to demand back funds that Osborne is stealing from Brighton & Hove. This financial onslaught would decimate services now under public control, denying local choice. Ultimately it’s an attack on local democracy. Brighton & Hove won’t take that lying down.”
Tell us how the cuts affect you
Our City Our Future has also just launched a website at www.ourcityourfuture.org.uk, which offers posters, leaflets, a chance to be heard and an invitation to residents to share their experiences of being affected by government cuts to local services. Later in the campaign these experiences will be assembled into a dossier, to be presented to whoever is then in Downing Street.
Performances Friday and Saturday
“Shout it Out” will be performed at the following places and times:
Friday February 13, 2015
11.00am Jubilee Square, Brighton
1.00pm Jubilee Square, Brighton
Saturday February 14, 2015
11.00am George Street, Hove
12.00pm George Street, Hove
2.00pm Jubilee Square, Brighton
3.00pm Jubilee Square, Brighton
For more information please contact the Brighton and Hove Green Party office on 01273 766 670.