Alan Lane is Artistic Director of Slung Low, an award-winning theatre company based in the oldest surviving working men’s club in the UK. Slung Low specialise in making large scale productions in non-theatre spaces with community performers at their heart. During the Covid crisis, the company was the ward lead for social care referrals in Holbeck and Beeston, nearly 8000 homes in South Leeds. They ran a non-means tested self-referral food bank from March 2020 to June 2021. Lane was awarded a British Empire Medal for services to South Leeds during the crisis.

‘This is an amazing story of remarkable people doing their very best in an unprecedented time for the world. This book demands that we revise our ideas about what theatre companies are for, what community art can be, and what people really need to live a full and productive life. Read this and be challenged and uplifted!' Ian McMillan