Engineers Of The Imagination

A guide to The Welfare State, a theatre group which uses the traditions of carnival, music hall and fairground to entertain audiences. Their work formed the centrepiece of Glasgow's 1990 City of Culture celebrations.

"Welfare State International are brilliant at making an audience of strangers into a community" (Guardian) Since its foundation by John Fox in 1968, Welfare State International has developed a unique form of celebratory theatre that reaches popular audiences through remarkable combinations of archetypal and contemporary imagery. This handbook is a guide to the basic techniques of the company's work - the making of processions; large scale puppets and sculptures; fixed structures; fire and ice technology; shadow puppets; processional theatre and dance music - set in a context that explains the thinking behind the work, and describes some past Welfare State International events. This is first and foremost a practical book rather than an academic treatise.