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FYFFI: Fifty Years of the Fight for Inclusion

Celebrating the struggle for change in theatre, what’s been gained, what remains to be achieved through readings, workshops, guided walks, exhibitions, publications and symposia.

We start with 50 years since the first Women’s Theatre Festival in UK, 1973-74 ...

DISCOVER MORE & BOOK EVENTS

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Black Theatre Histories

Unfinished Histories offers resources
on Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic
theatre histories

Future Events

Discover More Here

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Celebrating LGBTQ+ Theatre Histories

Unfinished Histories created an exhibition of posters, Acting Out, and hosts staged readings, discussions and interviews revisiting this vital history

FIND OUT MORE

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Illustrated Talks,

Workshops,

Discussions,

and Readings

Tours,

Future Events

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Exhibitions

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Heritage Specialists

Unfinished Histories are specialists in theatre heritage projects including oral history, archive development, exhibitions and more.

Future Events

Welcome to Unfinished Histories

Recording the history of Alternative Theatre in the 1960s, 70s and 80s through interviews and the collecting of archive material.

Companies involved were among some of the first Black, Asian, lesbian, gay, women’s, disabled, political, experimental, TIE and community-based theatre groups seen in Britain.

Work ranged from experiments in physical and visual theatre or performance art, to vernacular drama, agit-prop and satire, championing a generation of artists whose work has influenced and shaped present day theatre.

Music: Jam Today | Photo: Roger Perry

Interviews

This website contains material taken from our interviews with practitioners active in the alternative theatre movement (see our INTERVIEWS drop down list) as well as giving extensive information on Companies and Individuals, with links to related projects and archives.

Unfinished Histories was established in 2006 and the material on the website reflects our activities up until 2017. Due to financial restraints there is very little new work being undertaken at present in terms of oral history interviews and additions to our website pages. However what we have collected thus far is publicly available through our despositories: Bishopsgate Institute (oral history interviews and archive material – posters, programmes, photos, books etc); Sheffield University, British Library Sound Archives and V&A Theatre Collections (oral history interviews) and this website.

In the spirit of that unfinished radical activist history and as an activist archive, Unfinished Histories declares solidarity with those artists and activists working for justice and change today in a time of climate crisis, social injustice and racial inequality. We have created a page of links to current activist organisations. If you have information to add about a project, please email us.

Testimonials

A really valuable, practical project that uncovers a theatre history that might otherwise be entirely lost.

Lyn Gardner

Their histories are beacons for the present and the future. By capturing the voices and the dreams that laid the foundations of the theatre today, this project will provide an invaluable resource for theatre artists, policy makers and scholars.

Jatinder Verma

This is a truly amazing initiative. It provides the first stage in the listings of many companies which would otherwise have disappeared off the map.

Stuart Bennett

What a great site you have. Thanks very much for putting all this together.

Garry Brooking

I have at various times come across your brilliant project, most recently while trying to trace people involved in Oval House Printshop – via your interview with Chris Montag.

Jess Baines

Your wonderful research project.

Neil Gore

Brilliant social and theatre history.

Ags Irwin

Well done on a really useful site. More strength to your collective elbows.

Naseem Khan

All those familiar faces, like mine, some thinner or filled out, and older of course – they hold my history and I hold theirs, and the history is in the work, and you have valued the work enough to seek it out and gather it together and make sense of it. A line that stretches from there to here; from then to now.

Natasha Morgan

I haven’t felt so cheery, inspired, glad to be alive, in weeks. It was fab, oh, very well done.

Ann McFerran

We are delighted that the Unfinished Histories archive is now lodged within the Bishopsgate Institue Archive. Cataloging is underway and you will be able to see what is available for viewing there via their Online Catalogue by the end of 2018. Meanwhile if you wish to see or hear any of our collection please contact us to arrange a viewing.

Support Us

Supporting Unfinished Histories

Unfinished Histories relies on the active participation and support of individuals. Its capacity to fulfill its aims and activities is therefore dependent on YOU. If you would like to support us you can do so in the following ways: Donating: Contributing to this site; Volunteering.