Birmingham Arts Lab

Figures involved with the Arts Lab, often early in their careers, included cartoonists Hunt Emerson, Edward Barker, Kevin O'Neill, Bryan Talbot, Steve Bell and Suzy Varty;[4] playwrights David Edgar and David Hare; film director Mike Figgis; writer and poet Gareth Owen; comedian and performance artist John Dowie; photographer and journalist Derek Bishton; the psychedelic group Bachdenkel; novelist Jim Crace; singer Ruby Turner, film maker and photographer Pogus Caesar and composer and sonic artist Trevor Wishart.

[6] Although it never had a drinks licence (due to constant friction with the local licensing authorities) it had a coffee bar, beneath which was a void between the floors in which several members intermittently lived.

Little was to be artistic director through to 1982, apart from a two-year spell as head of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, during which he transformed it "from a club for the self-absorbed of Kensington to a roaring popular venue" and paved the way for its important role in the early years of British punk.

August 1977 saw the Arts Lab move completely from Tower Street to new, much larger premises in a former brewery on the campus of Aston University, with a bookshop, studios and exhibition spaces.

Shortage of funds meant that not all of the planned facilities were finished, however, and the new more orderly surroundings were felt by some to have compromised the Arts Lab's uniquely liberating culture.

[6] A regular Theatre Workshop was established from 1973, and the following years saw a series of plays written specifically for the Arts Lab including John Dowie's Stillsmith, Gareth Owen's Confession of Jon-Jak Crusoe and his rock operetta Rupert, Bruce Lacey and Jill Bruce's Stella Superstar and Her Amazing Intergalactic Adventures[6] and most notably David Edgar's Summer Sports, later revived as Blood Sports and still widely performed.

[11] Janice Connolly, who later became comedy character Mrs Barbara Nice, performed at Tower Street in a piece directed by John Dowie from a Hunt Emerson cartoon "Dog Man".

The Arts Lab had a printing operation from its establishment in 1969, set up by Bryan Brown and Simon Chapman whose work was influenced by the psychedelic imagery of the West Coast of America.

Initially intended to print flyers and price lists the purchase of its own press meant the offset operation was dedicated to the manufacture of the Lab's cinema programme and art related projects.

[4] Starting with Emerson's own Large Cow Comix – which also featured work by Kevin O'Neill and Bryan Talbot[4] – and eventually branching out such varied publications as Steve Bell's Big Foot; David Edgar's anti-Nazi Committed Comix and Suzy Varty's Heroine (the first British women's comic),[6] Ar:Zak was to become an important part of the history of underground British comics, a position reinforced when the Arts Lab held KAK – the first Konvention of Alternative Komix in 1976.