Tag Archives: East End

Daedalus joins Together on Cable Street for 90-year anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street

Ninety years after the Battle of Cable Street, our communities in the East End continue to stand up to hate with creativity and connection. Daedalus Theatre Company joins Together on Cable Street for a programme of workshops and events leading up to October 4th, culminating in a demo and march starting outside Tower Hamlets Town Hall in Whitechapel from 12PM.

Joining the Together programme makes a lot of sense for Daedalus. We are a local theatre company with experience working with working-class and migrant communities, and we are therefore aware of the very real threat facing our communities in today’s political climate. We have also invested in long-term relationships with artists who share our values of combatting injustice, hatred and bigotry. Daedalus reflect the diversity of this great borough and has developed projects and programmes that are already attuned to anti-fascist and anti-racist movement building. Finally, as a company, we prize work that brings Jewish and Muslim communities together. This is particularly evident in our East Storytelling Project with internationally renowned Associate Artists Sef Townsend and Shamim Azad.

We are very pleased to announce our partnership with the Tower Hamlets Trades Council and the local young people charity Streets of Growth to mark this historic moment. 

East Storytelling Project Announcement in partnership with Camden Peoples Theatre

Our East Storytelling Project is back this summer, and we are thrilled to announce that we are growing our project thanks to a new partnership with Camden Peoples Theatre and funding from Arts Council England. 

After marking ten years at Rich Mix in 2023 as part of A Season of Bangla Drama festival, we imagined what our storytelling project might look like outside of Tower Hamlets. Whilst the project began in the East End we have always had storytellers and audiences who have connected with us from across London and especially following the launch of our East Archive, this is a project that connects people across the globe. Stories of migration are at the heart of the project, so it makes sense that we, too, would migrate! 

Last year we were successful for the Mayor’s Tower Hamlets Small Grants Programme, where we piloted  East to Elsewhere by responding to the A Season of Bangla Drama 2025 festival theme of kindness. 

Associate Artist Spotlight: Sef Townsend

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.

Artist Spotlight: Marshall Savage

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