Boards Index General discussion Getting serious Laughing at you with a fist full of taxes

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    Young asylum seekers and refugees are to be given free clowning lessons at taxpayers’ expense to help them adapt to life in Britain, it emerged.

    The youngsters aged 12 to 25 will learn slapstick routines, how to tumble, silly walks and how to fall over during a course of nine theatre workshops estimated to cost up to a total of £2,000.

    Organisers at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry say the classes, which will also teach clown face make-up and mime, are designed to boost the self-confidence of the youngsters.

    The clowning classes are due to start this weekend with two introductory workshops each lasting five hours.

    There will then be seven weekly workshops lasting two hours each from November 7 to December 19.

    The theatre refused to disclose exactly how much the sessions are costing. But professional circus artistes charge around £200 for two hours and up to £250 for a day of up to six hours.

    On that basis, the total cost of the course would be around £1900 before VAT.

    Hamish Glen, artistic director and chief executive of the Belgrade Theatre, denied that the total would be £2,000, saying that while some of the workshops will involve artistes hired in from outside, most of the work would be done “in house” by the theatre’s community project workers.

    The theatre receives core funding of £1m each per year from the Arts Council and Coventry City Council, which it then allocates to putting on performances and running its extensive programme of outreach work in the community as it chooses, Mr Glen said.

    “We are expected by our major funders to promote access for disadvantaged groups and work in depressed areas,” he added.

    Justine Themen, the Belgrade’s assistant director for community and education, defended the clowning lessons for asylum seekers and refugess.

    “Play and theatre are great methods of teaching marginalised groups because straight teaching doesn’t always work,” she said.

    “We want it to raise their confidence and social skills because it can be very hard to reach disadvantaged groups.

    “We have done similar projects with the long term unemployed in the area, and with children excluded from schools.”

    The theatre has been working with asylum seekers and refugees in the area for about a year.

    Previous projects include putting on a play about the Second World War to relate the refugees’ experiences of war to those of people in Coventry who survived the Blitz.

    “This time they wanted to do something funny and light hearted. The clowning workshps are ideal because many of them have limited language skills and it’s a way of expressing things without language,” she said.

    “Some of the people taking these lessons will have suffered traumatic childhoods and may be in the country because they are escaping persecution.

    “The workshops are going to be funny and will take people’s minds away from what might be a depressing reality. It is also fitting that clowns are sometimes misfits in society.

    “As well as having fun, the participants will gain employability skills and build up language skills which will be a major help for this particular group.”

    http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23371123-details/Outrage+as+asylum+seekers+given+expensive+lessons+in+'clowning'/article.do

    Great way of buying a vote.

    #245113

    “Great way to buy a vote” you say. Are the actors standing for election then?

    #245114

    Why bother with classes for clowning, put them in the public gallery at the House of Commons.
    Plenty of examples.

    #245115

    @Mr Bigstuff wrote:

    “Great way to buy a vote” you say. Are the actors standing for election then?

    More than 600 every 4 years :wink:

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