London, United Kingdom – Friday 05 November 2021, LBTH, FITF – Daedalus Theatre Company, Gerrard Winstanley’s Mobile Incitement Unit. 
East at Rich Mix – Photo: Simon Daw 
Mobile Incitement at the Freedom and Independence Festival 
A Place at the Table: Jennifer Muteteli and Anna-Maria Nabriye 
Selfish at The Arches, Glasgow: Graeme Mackay, Susan Worsfold and Onur Orkut 
APATT at AIUK – Photo: Harriet Stewart 
Mobile Incitement at Brixton City Festival 
East at Boi-Lit 16 – photo by Shoayeeb Chamak for BSK 
The Black Smock Band – part of the Silk River project 
Mobile Incitement at Brixton City Festival 
Saturday 05 August 2017, LBTH – Sef Townsend and Alia Alzougbi of East at Great Day Out at Victoria Park – Photo, Rehan Jamil 
Mobile Incitement at Latitude Festival – Photos: Andy Bannister/Payam Torabi 
East 3 at the Boishaki Mela 
Jennifer Muteteli and Anna-Maria Nabriye in A Place at the Table, CPT 
Woodland Walk pilot – Photo: Tan Nidhivir 
Mobile Incitement at Brixton City Festival 
East at Boi-Lit 16 – photo by Shoayeeb Chamak for BSK 
Mobile Incitement at Ovalhouse 
East at Boi-Lit 16 – photo by Shoayeeb Chamak for BSK 
East at Boi-Lit 16 – photo by Shoayeeb Chamak for BSK 
An East Storytelling holiday workshop 
Mobile Incitement at the Freedom and Independence Festival 
Woodland Walk pilot – Photo: Tan Nidhivir 
East Storytelling at The Big Day Out, Victoria Park 
Mobile Incitement at Latitude Festival – Photos: Andy Bannister/Payam Torabi 
Onur Orkut in Selfish, The Arches, Glasgow 
East at Rich Mix – Photo: Simon Daw 
An East Storytelling holiday workshop 
Graeme Mackay in Selfish, the Arches, Glasgow 
Grace Nyandoro and Seboelo Majozi 
Mobile Incitement at Latitude Festival – Photos: Andy Bannister/Payam Torabi 
APATT at AIUK – Photo: Harriet Stewart 
East at Rich Mix – Photo: Simon Daw 
Susan Worsfold in A Place at the Table, CPT 
Sef, Shamim and Paul at Boishakhi Mela 
London, United Kingdom – Friday 05 November 2021, LBTH, FITF – Daedalus Theatre Company, Gerrard Winstanley’s Mobile Incitement Unit. 
Susan Worsfold in Selfish 
Some of the East Storytelling community 
A Place at the Table at Amnesty International 
Some of the East Storytelling community 
Selfish at CPT – the set
Photo of Paul Burgess, Dan Cox and Andy Bannister (left to right) by Tasnim Siddiqa Amin at a rehearsal in Deptford, 2026
Daedalus Theatre Company and the Black Smock Band have worked together on many projects. You may recognise our director, Paul Burgess, as one of the members of the band! After years of collaborations, we think it’s time to spotlight the band in their own right. Grab a cuppa and settle in because it’s a read as heart-warming as the band’s music, which incidentally, you can hear live – and sing along with – on Wednesday 22nd April 2026 at Camden People’s Theatre. Book your tickets for QUEER REVOLUTIONARY SINGALONG now:
Tell us about yourself and your creative practice.
Andy Bannister: In addition to being a musician, I’m a visual artist and a tutor working in higher education. I teach on a fine art course where I mainly work with students who focus on sculpture and combined media- this reflects what I do when I’m in my studio. In my current work, I’m exploring the impact of science and technology on culture and society, with a focus on the widespread civil opposition to the nuclear arms race during the Cold War period. There’s a crossover here with my activities as a musician, in terms of my interest in the role of folk music within protest movements and the emphasis on stories of resistance within the folk tradition.
Our work continues in Havering with Kaleidoscope, a grassroots organisation that has been working with young LGBTQ+ people in Romford since 2022.
Date: Tuesday 7th April 2026
Time: 5PM-7PM
Location: Lumiere Romford, RM1 3EE
Age: 16-25
Often queer people have been called unnatural, but nature is filled with wonder and ambiguity. Take the most apparently basic animal, the fruit fly; researchers have found that fruit flies have metafemale, metamales and intersex gender identities, and bisexuality. One species of fungus has 23,000 genders. Gay penguins have been well documented in zoos and the wild. Starfish are asexual.
Andy Bannister, Dan Cox and Paul Burgess at Deptford Pride 2019. Photo by Dino Paciulli
Daedalus returns to Camden People’s Theatre 15 years after their acclaimed immersive documentary drama A Place at the Table, to present QUEER REVOLUTIONARY SINGALONG with ecosocialist folk band The Black Smock Band.
Join us this April for fiery folk tunes and leftie singalong classics, from ‘Bread and Roses’ to ‘Solidarity Forever’. Bring your singing voice and your revolutionary fervour! There will also be a limited number of floor spots. If you have a song that fits the vibe, and you’d like to share it, get in touch with the band via this link.
Date: Weds 22 April 2026
Time: 8.30PM
Location: Camden People’s Theatre
Tickets are pay what you can, starting from £3
Photo of Sef Townsend at A Season of Bangla Drama by Rehan Jamil (2017)
Our second East spotlight is on global storyteller, interfaith peace advocate and Londoner Sef Townsend, who is of mixed Jewish and traveller heritage. Sef co-founded the East Storytelling Project alongside Paul Burgess and Shamim Azad back in 2014. Tasnim Siddiqa Amin had a chat with Sef one Saturday afternoon about his 30-year career in storytelling, his love for the East End and his latest creative projects.
Listen to the interview here:
Tell us about yourself
I’m a storyteller. I’ve been telling stories for a long time. But what are the contexts that I tell? So, I go regularly to schools, and I work with children from really young until they’re really quite old, actually. I’m also involved in peace and reconciliation work. And I’ve worked in Israel and Palestine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, South Africa, areas of conflict or post-conflict. I have been brought in to try and create some conversations between people who, according to their background, are supposed to dislike each other.
Photo of Marshall Savage at Kobi Nazrul Centre (2025)
Marshall Savage, also known as Mijan, is a Bangladeshi-British queer person from Bow. Marshall is passionate about LGBTQ+ rights and welfare not warfare. Marshall doesn’t come from a creative or academic background, but he loves learning new skills and embracing new experiences wherever they lead him. He is the newest member of our East Storytelling Project.
After a late evening of rehearsals for our latest East production EAST TO ELSEWHERE, local trade unionist Marshall and assistant producer Tasnim sat at Chaiwalla on Brick Lane with a coffee and roti to talk about the East End, activism and the importance of sharing stories of migrant women.
Tell us about yourself.
My name is Marshall, I’m born and raised in Tower Hamlets, in Bow specifically. I work for Tower Hamlets and I’m also a Trade unionist. I’m very heavily involved in activism, especially local activism and organising against the far right
Photo by Rehan Jamil
Do you have a story to tell about kindness? We’re looking for Bengali storytellers from Tower Hamlets. If you have a story about acts of kindness, migration or how Tower Hamlets has shaped your life, we want to hear from you! This callout is for people with little or no professional experience in storytelling.
About the Project: We’re thrilled to announce East to Elsewhere, a new storytelling event celebrating the theme of Kindness from the EAST Project. This project will explore the rich history and diverse cultures of Tower Hamlets through stories of migration, community support, and kindness—especially stories of kindness shown by migrant communities to newcomers such as refugees and asylum seekers.
The kind of thing that we are looking for:
Photo collage featuring Shamim Azad, Farah Naz, Sef Townsend, Michele Chowrimootoo, Paul Burgess, Tasnim Siddiqa Amin (left to right)
We’re delighted to announce that Daedalus Theatre Company will be part of the 22nd year of A Season of Bangla Drama, with the latest iteration of our East Storytelling Project: East to Elsewhere. Our performance at the annual festival, at 7:30pm on 14th November 2025 in Tower Hamlets, marks a turning point. Our last performance at Season of Bangla Drama celebrated a decade of the project. This year’s show marks the beginning of an exciting new phase.
Following a period of planning, dreaming and discussion with members of our storytelling community, we’re widening the project’s reach. Having recently taken Mobile Incitement to Exeter and run one of our Creative Nature workshops in Sheffield, our performance at A Season of Bangla Drama pilots the format we hope to use to, well, as the title says, take East elsewhere.
Left to right: Jono Chant-Stevens, Dan Cox, Paul Burgess and Andy Bannister. Photo, Thomas Chant.
This summer, Daedalus performed its gig-theatre piece Gerrard Winstanley’s True and Righteous Mobile Incitement Unit at St Nicholas Priory, Exeter. Artistic director Paul Burgess reflects on the project.
We’ve been talking with the team at St Nicholas Priory for a while. It’s a fantastic building; the oldest in Exeter. Full of history, it felt like the perfect venue for Mobile Incitement. However, our first attempt, part of a planned tour in 2020, was cancelled due to Covid. This year, we finally made it. It was the first time we’d performed the show since we did it at the Freedom and Independence Theatre Festival in Whitechapel, East London, back in 2021. On that occasion, guest performer Saida Tani joined us to sing traditional Bengali songs.
Mobile Incitement, as we call it for short, was made in collaboration with The Black Smock Band – a gay eco-socialist folk band based in Deptford, South-east London. It tells the story of protest in England from the Peasants’ Revolt to the end of the Industrial Revolution, through historical texts, folk songs, and new writing. But what makes it particularly special is that everywhere we take it, we work with local people to make the show truly site-specific, with lots of local stories.
Photo by Hannah Davis of the Dysbiosis Collective and QTH Associate Producer Steven Bowyer at Queens Theatre
It has been four years in development, including some long pauses for fundraising. But we finally premiered Dysbiosis to a public audience last weekend. It took place at Queens Theatre, Hornchurch, which is also where it all started. We had performances on the main stage and an exhibition, titled Queering the Earth in the foyer.
The Dysbiosis Collective are Amy Daniels, Amy-Rose Edlyn, Fran Olivares, Kathryn Webb, Nuke Lagranje, Paul Burgess, Shakira Malkani, Tasnim Siddiqa Amin, Yael Elisheva and Zia Álmos Joshua.
Some highlights from the journey. Walking and drawing in Rainham Marshes with local residents. Running a workshop in a chapel in the middle of a cemetery in Sheffield. Doing a birdsong-filled sound walk in another cemetery, this time in Mile End, London. An exhibition of community artworks at the Royals Youth Centre in Rainham. Turning up to make a pitch to a Havering Changing residents’ panel with tea and homemade cake. Collaging with LGBTQ+ young people in Romford. Testing out ideas at Omnibus Theatre, as part of the 96 Festival of LGBTQ+ theatre.
We’re delighted to spotlight Amy (they/them), who first joined us in June to install our exhibition at Omnibus Theatre. This time, Amy returns as co-creator of Queering the Earth and stage manager for Dysbiosis. Throughout an intensive week of rehearsals at Queens Theatre Hornchurch, Amy will be bringing a wide range of skills to support the team. As a queer interdisciplinary artist and theatremaker deeply engaged in political and community work, Amy already feels like a long-lost member of Dysbiosis.
Tell us about yourself and your creative practice. You’ve worked across stage management, design, facilitation, and live art – how would you describe what drives your work and where your practice is heading?
I am a queer, multidisciplinary creative based in Tower Hamlets. I started out as a theatre designer/maker alongside working in technical theatre working extensively around West End and off-West End productions for over a decade now. In the past 5 years I expanded my practice in co-founding and directing queer arts company Bold Mellon Collective CIC as a creative producer, facilitator and curator of visual and live-art. Since February 2025, I have also been an artist in residence at Firepit Art Gallery and Studios CIC developing my own visual art & curatorial practice. I am especially interested in community-based projects which weave the intersections of the LGBTQIA+ community together and promote wellbeing through the arts. Politically active and socially engaging works drive me to create and currently I feel my practice going through an exciting transformation in blending these worlds and expanding capacity so I am excited to see where it takes me!
You first encountered Dysbiosis as an audience member at the Omnibus Theatre sharing, then co-curated the exhibition, and now you’re joining as stage manager. What has it been like to experience the project from these different perspectives?