Women & Theatre are working in partnership with the Birmingham Hippodrome and the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers Museum (Royal Warwickshire) in the delivery of a participatory heritage project exploring the experiences of young men and boys from Birmingham during WWI.

The project will bring together a group of 14-25 year old males to research the experiences of young recruits during WWI and share them through live performances around an old drill hall site area in Thorp Street, a temporary exhibition at the RRF Museum and this digital archive. We will be updating this blog with material as the project progresses, and hope you will enjoy an insight into the process.

We are very fortunate to have received funding for this project from the Heritage Lottery Fund, The Grimmit Trust, The Cole Charitable Trust, The Roughley Trust, The Rowlands Trust and Service Birmingham. We are also grateful to Chung Ying Garden and the Gallan Group for their permission to use the old Drill Hall site.

Monday 10 March 2014

First rehearsal - Monday 3 March


On Monday 3 March the group met at the Hippodrome to begin the devising process of The Chocolate Soldiers. There were lots of creative ideas flowing as the boys worked on the opening scene in the foyer area at the Hippodrome, showing the recruitment of the young boys from Birmingham.  We’ve also been choosing music for the performance - volunteer Frankie found the perfect note singing the song ‘Your King and Country’ with some of the lads joining in as well. The recruiting officer’s speech sounded great and we’re working on adding a layer of audience participation with the distribution of both anti and pro war flyers.  There was much fun and laughter in the session along with a sense of ‘getting the show on the road.’ A great start to rehearsals.

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