Art for Love's Sake or Down‐and‐Outs in London and Paris

By the time Ken Branagh had seen it at the hostel and claimed, 'the work deserves every support it can get' we had been invited to Paris and Berlin. Having done a modern language General Degree at Edinburgh, I found myself in a unique situation to contribute as an assistant, and was soon able to tour with them, in fact finding the world famous Volksbuhne in Berlin wanted us to do a play with East and West Berliners. I was able to raise the budget of fifty thousand pounds.

Irving Wardle, leading critic wrote:

'Lightening may strike in the coming weeks, but after this searing piece the official Edinburgh programme gives off an odor of museum theatre.'

Susan Sarandon who came across us working in Brazil with street children wrote:

'I admire Jeremy Weller's work with the Grassmarket Project. He deals honestly and directly with the world as he finds it - and the world he finds can be deeply disturbing and distressing. He finds his inspiration on the margins of society, amongst the dispossessed and the overlooked - the street prostitutes in Sao Paolo, the gang members in Harlem, the homeless in Edinburgh...

 'It is here, on the extreme edge of our human experience, that he finds the possibility of art - and of redemption.

'What makes Jeremy's dramas so startling is not simply the fact that that they are devised and written in collaboration with the people who are living these difficult lives for real, but that these same people get to appear on stage or on film as themselves and to speak their own stories in their own words.

'This gives the work its authenticity and makes its protagonists truly visible to us, the audience - perhaps for the first time. I think that both they and we end up in much better shape as a result. And that's why I am getting involved.'

Jeremy had studied under Eastern legend Tadeusz Kantor in Krakow, Poland:

'Theatre was a fundamental part of the culture rather than an elitist form. Theatre had evolved to defy censorship. It became an expression of freedom.'

He was unable to return to painting after this experience as he felt it 'too removed from life.... I wanted to give arts back to the people by producing work based on life's experiences.'

Like Mike Leigh Jeremy creates improvised drama that is both familiar and disturbing.

But his form of slice of life goes much deeper.

'These are real people up there on stage. I want my plays to demonstrate that there is creative potential in everyone, but more importantly I want to engage those who don't normally have access to arts.

So called ordinary people live such amazing lives.'

One of the most arresting results of involving a limited number of real homeless people from the former East and West of Berlin when we started rehearsing a dynamic play was that they started sleeping all around the theatre. This was soon splashed across papers, just as previously our work with Edinburgh's visiting homeless had led to a headline about 'The Titanic', as a business reception was in progressed upstairs in one of the rented salons, while downstairs the homeless from Berlin met in the subterranean canteen with Edinburgh lads.

We were obliged to express our concern about the camping homeless the following morning, when informed, but could not help seeing the funny side and adding a scene in our play that gave bold expression to a vision that was being made tangible by the actions of these free spirits. When Jean and Jeremy and I had been made aware of the trap door while touring the original historic bowels of the theatre, instructing us how in the Nineteen Twenties it had celebrated the world's largest revolving stage, we were aware how funny it would appear if some dull theatre revival piece with actors in powdered  faces and wigs were to be interrupted by the growling snores, resounding snorting and yawns of itinerants who slowly emerged onto the stage having broken in overnight.