Combining music, song, theatre and video-taped interviews, the production draws parallels between the experiences of various immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Salford, north-west England: from the Irish coming to work in the city's cotton, transport, mining, engineering, timber and clothing industries in the early twentieth century, through the Jews fleeing fascism in the 1930s, the Yemeni people, and then, more recently, the Kurds fleeing persecution in Iraq.
Framing the drama is the story of an attack by a group of white youths on a Kurdish teenager and his father.
A debate between audience, Banner Theatre personnel and activists on the treatment in Britain of refugees followed, with numerous plugs for the European Social Forum events in London this weekend - a gathering of some 20,000 social and environmental justice activists from across the world.
Afterwards, we had a wonderful meal on Green Lanes - chicken kebab, bulgar and rice pilaf, lamb stewed with tomatoes and peppers, spinach in a spicy yoghurt sauce, aubergine baked with olives and apricots, spiced black tea and honey-drenched baklava for dessert. Oh, and lots of dark, heavy red wine.
Bloated links roll:
+ IPod users go into the closet. Link via one of my favourite gadgets blogs Popgadget.
+ "The reactionary stereotype of a Guardian reader is a person with leftist or liberal politics rooted in the 1960s, working in the public sector, regularly eating lentils and muesli, wearing sandals and believing in alternative medicine and natural medicine." Tee hee, well they got the first one right as far as I'm concerned (even though I wasn't even born in the 60s!). Superb Wikipedia entry for my favourite newspaper, The Guardian. Link via randomWalks.
+ Joke for nerds only: "One eskimo speaking to another eskimo. The first eskimo says, 'You'll never guess what. Those social software people have three hundred words for "friend".' From Interconnected.
+ "Email is one of the greatest things the computer revolution has done for personal productivity. Used improperly, it can also hurt your productivity. This article discusses ways to use email effectively. Then it goes beyond that and talks about how to be productive, period." The tyranny of email. Simply brilliant.
+ We're not humans, we're bacteria-human hybrids
+ Extraordinary and eloquent exchange between an Iraqi mother of 3 (and blogger) and an ex-US marine sniper.
+ Google desktop is here. But only for Internet Explorer and M$ Outlook users (so not at all useful for me who uses Firefox and - sorry - AOL Communicator). Via blog-God Kottke.
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