Book description
"Welfare State International are brilliant at making an audience
of strangers into a community" Guardian Welfare State
International, the inspirational theatre company founded in 1968 and
based in Cumbria, creates and facilitates celebratory art and theatre,
ranging from carnivals, lantern processions and rites of passage, to
flags, banners and pyrotechnics. In a mixture of personal stories, clear
instructions, poems and artists' sketches, Eyes on Stalks is a detailed
and practical guide to their production techniques. It includes sections
on caravans and street shows, community regeneration, comedy
extravaganzas and alternative naming, betrothal and funeral ceremonies.
John Fox made puppets as a child, learned about explosives in the
National Service, spent his PPE co urse at Oxford doing life-drawing at
The Ruskin School, then studied Fine Art at Newcastle. He formed Welfare
State with Sue Gill and others in 1968, and continues to be their
Artistic Director and Chief Executive.
