Torriano Meeting House is a user-funded grass-roots volunteer-run arts and community organisation in Kentish Town. We are best known for our poetry events but we have many other long running strands including storytelling for adults, writing and storytelling workshops, hosting local political campaigning groups, theatrical events, left wing folk club, and we very much support grass-roots creativity and social change.
Torriano is a space for you to organise events and projects.
“What is the purpose of resisting corporate globalization if not to protect the obscure, the ineffable, the unmarketable, the unmanageable, the local, the poetic and the eccentric? So they need to be practiced, celebrated and studied too, right now.” – Rebecca Solnit
We are making preparations for safely coming together again. Autumn brings stirrings of new growth in a topsy turvey world.
Our capacity audience is 8 people. Please bring a mask to events.
If you would like to make a financial contribution, donate here:
Just to remind you that we will be having a one off Unity Zoom on Monday 28 December, 7.45pm – which is when we would have been meeting had it been in normal times.
Red and Green choir have provided the words for some singalong songs (below) and one of them will be leading a couple of these to start our ‘performance’ round off. For those of you who have not yet sung on zoom, everyone will have to remain muted other than the one person leading. It is not possible to join our voices together on zoom as the time delays cause chaos and cacophony. However, we will start by going around the room saying hello since it is so long since we have been together.
Everybody welcome, especially singers and poets who sing or read against war, capitalism, exploitation, privatisation, imperialism and globalisation.
If you want to find the general I know where he is I know where he is I know where he is If you want to find the general I know where he is He’s pinning another medal on his chest I saw him, I saw him Pinning another medal on his chest Pinning another medal on his chest
If you want to find the colonel I know where he is I know where he is I know where he is If you want to find the colonel I know where he is He’s sitting in comfort stuffing his bloody gut I saw him, I saw him Sitting in comfort stuffing his bloody gut
If you want to find the sergent I know where he is I know where he is I know where he is If you want to find the sergent I know where he is He’s drinking all the company rum I saw him, I saw him Drinking all the company rum Drinking all the company rum
If you want to find the private I know where he is I know where he is I know where he is If you want to find the private I know where he is He’s hanging on the old barbed wire I saw him, I saw him Hanging on the old barbed wire Hanging on the old barbed wire
Don’t you hear the H-bomb’s thunder Echo like the crack of doom? While they rend the skies asunder Fall-out makes the earth a tomb Do you want your homes to tumble Rise in smoke towards the sky? Will you let your cities crumble Will you see your children die?
Chorus: Men and women, stand together Do not heed the men of war Make your minds up now or never Ban the bomb for evermore
Tell the leaders of the nations Make the whole wide world take heed Poison from the radiations Strikes at every race and creed Must you put mankind in danger Murder folk in distant lands? Will you bring death to a stranger Have his blood upon your hands?
Chorus: Men and women, stand together Do not heed the men of war Make your minds up now or never Ban the bomb for evermore
Shall we lay the world in ruin? Only you can make the choice Stop and think of what you’re doing Join the march and raise your voice Time is short; we must be speedy We can see the hungry filled
House the homeless, help the needy Shall we blast, or shall we build ?
Chorus: Men and women, stand together Do not heed the men of war Make your minds up now or never Ban the bomb for evermore
4. Stand where I stand
Stand where I stand
See what I see
Your truth and my truth
Shall keep company ———————————————
Unity Folk Club was started in the late 40s / early 50s by Jack Firestein, a Unity Theatre management committee chair, and the front of house face of Unity Theatre, running the bookstall in the foyer during every performance (weekends only) and the folk club in the bar on Wednesdays. Jack remained a steadfast, principled and caring socialist all his life. It was his life.
Unity was of course the left-wing theatre in Mornington Crescent that specialised in socialist theatre, famous for its political pantomimes and living newspapers and for being at the heart of the militant national theatre movement in the 1930s. The Unity made its name with Waiting for Lefty and was the first theatre to stage a Brecht play in Britain.
Paul Robeson. Photo: Library of Congress via wikicommons
The folk club had to move after fires shut the Theatre. Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson were two famous singers connected with the Unity Theatre and Jack.
The Unity Folk Club was at the Enterprise in Chalk Farm Road until 2003 when it moved to Torriano Meeting House.
The central point of the club is to help to keep political folk singing alive, which is particularly necessary in the present climate.
Everybody welcome, especially singers and poets who sing or read against war, capitalism, exploitation, privatisation, imperialism and globalisation.
