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.

Tuesday, 17 December 2013

Research session at Birmingham Hippodrome continued

 
And finally here we are: the general public responded to our callout and a number of local historians, archivists and family members came and talked to us about their memories and stories linked to WWI.  It was an astonishing day, and we are extremely grateful to all those who came to this session, or who contacted us by email or phone with information.
 
 




 
 
At the end of the session the group sat round to discuss their experiences.  The general consensus was that it had been a huge success and the boys had really enjoyed both interviewing, and finding out so much information about WWI in general, and the soldiers who fought in it. 
 

Research session at Birmingham Hippodrome continued...

A quick break from interviewing and some ideas for the production perhaps?
 


 
 
And time for some final creative scenes before the general public arrive...
 

Research session with Izzy Mohammed - Birmingham Hippodrome - December 2013

 
In December we held a second research session at Birmingham Hippodrome.  We were very lucky to have Izzy Mohammed from Birmingham Central Library with us to discuss oral history and how to gather it.


Here the boys practice their new interview skills which were to become very useful during the session later that day with the general public ...

 
 
 
 


And Janice has a quick talk with them about their character's 'back-story' while there's a break in the action... 


 

Research session - 11 December 2013 - Carpenter Place residential home

 
On the 11th of December we had a wonderful time interviewing the elderly about WWI at Carpenter Place residential home. The participants engaged with these lovely people through discussions, songs and a short moment of rock and roll before we left.

 
 
 
 
While we were singing Christmas songs, resident George surprised us with a beautiful song about his time in the army during WWII.  Have a listen!