YOU’RE FRIED! The Realities of Youth Employment
You're Fried! Was a powerful youth-led legislative theatre event, facilitated by legislative theatre practitioners Sam Dixon and Lee Grant.
The event brought together young people, policymakers, and community members to confront the challenges of youth employment in the West Midlands.
About the event
On 1 July 2025, the Project, led by Sonia Bussu at the University of Birmingham, in partnership with and Birmingham City Council hosted “You’re Fried! The Realities of Youth Employment”, at South and City College.
A play with purpose
Fifteen young people from diverse backgrounds across the region got together in February. Under Sam and Lee’s expert guidance they co-created create a play that explored their lived experiences with employment, training, and career support. The title “You’re Fried!” cleverly referenced the precarious nature of low-paid, insecure jobs often available to youth.
The performance unfolded through 4 compelling scenarios:
- family disconnect – A young man’s choice to pursue an apprenticeship over university sparked tension within his global majority family, highlighting generational and cultural misunderstandings about career paths
- school career services – Students seeking guidance were met with indifference and sarcasm, revealing systemic failures in educational career support
- digital barriers – Young people struggled to find reliable job information online and faced repeated rejections without feedback, underscoring the lack of accessible digital support
- poor working conditions – A glimpse into the realities of poor employment for young people and how it often does not align with their expectations and their needs to develop their careers
From spectators to spect-actors
Audience members were invited to become “spect-actors,” stepping into scenes to propose and act out solutions. This interactive format empowered participants to reimagine how institutions could better support youth.
Policy co-creation
The final segment featured policymakers from Birmingham City Council and local colleges, employers, and local youth charities. Together with the young performers and audience, they co-developed three key policy proposals:
- early and inclusive work experience reform – Creating multiple, early, accessible working experiences for young people, including inspiration days, site visits, and structured placements, to build connections, networks, and partnerships with employers
- cross-sector alliance to incentivise and enforce work experience opportunities – A collaborative working body consisting of government, council, education, business and charity stakeholders, to develop incentives and infrastructure to increase meaningful work experience and opportunities
- Youth-Evaluated Career Support Programme – with the aim to develop better understanding of what does and does not work in the current offer, and develop a shared toolkit and accountability system for employers and schools. The aim of this proposal is to ensure career guidance is relevant, inclusive, and responsive through cross-sector collaboration
On the day of the performance, each policymaker committed to supporting these initiatives with their own actions and commitments.
What happned next
On July 16 the policymakers were joined by the young people for a combined collaborative approach to evaluate each commitment and co-produce them so decisions would be in the interest of young people.
A balanced and fair approach was agreed and some of the commitments demonstrate what will be done to move policy forward.
Page last updated: 27 October 2025