Rows over Creative Scotland and accusations of political bias aren’t the whole story, says CHRIS BARTTER
This is my
Voices of Scotland feature for Tuesday's
Morning Star.
AS WE begin to hit the busiest time of the cultural year in
Scotland, it’s worthwhile to take a look around the scene in this year
of referendum, war anniversary and Commonwealth Games.
After
huge political furore over funding and direction at Creative Scotland
resulted in a change of director, has that resulted in a change of
direction?
A similar change at the top of the National Theatre
of Scotland (NToS) seems at least in part to have been prompted by
criticisms of the ethnic origins of the founding artistic director.
And
how have the nascent cultural initiatives begun by the Scottish trade
union and labour movement at May Day and elsewhere been holding up?
The
— still relatively new — attempts by the STUC and local trade union
councils to build up the celebration side of May Day seems to be
increasing in its reach and support.
The programme produced by
Glasgow Friends of May Day, the body set up to channel those
initiatives, shows an increase in its coverage, running cabarets in
Dumfries and Blantyre with singer-songwriter Rab Noakes as well as a
repeat of last year’s successful Oran Mor production, where Mark Thomas
headlines a superb line-up.
While this carefully avoids being
seen as a replacement for the much-lamented MayFest, started by former
STUC arts officer Alex Clark, there is no doubt that the base threads of
trade union and local community involvement in the programme have
similarities to the aims of that festival.
There are no overt
references to this year’s independence referendum in the May Day
celebrations — possibly marking the decision of many unions and the STUC
to concentrate on using the debate to argue for the kind of Scotland
they want rather then engage in the constitutional bitterness.
But
we might well expect some references in the Scottish Left Review’s
comedy fundraiser. It stars one of the Yes campaign’s leading
cheerleaders in Elaine C Smith.
Similarly, last year’s furore
over Sir Jonathan Mills’s claimed exclusion of referendum material from
August’s Edinburgh International Festival seems now to have been a tad
misplaced.
 |
| Laurie Sansom. NToS |
A major production of Scottish playwright Rona Munro’s
James work, directed by new NToS artistic director Laurie Sansom, will
put Scottish identity and the governance of the nation front and
centre-stage.
Both Edinburgh’s Book Festival and a major fringe
venue, the Assembly Rooms, have promised more referendum material this
year, although whether this proves overkill remains to be seen.
Certainly, the Yes campaign has largely captured Scotland’s artists,
with only a small handful declaring for No.
Sansom himself has
been easing himself into the hot seat at NToS. As the second English
artistic director he has already been the subject of warning shots from
bloggers on the pro-independence Bella Caledonia site.
However,
he has managed to commission pro- and anti- theatre practitioners David
Greig and Dave
 |
| Dave MacLennan |
MacLennan to curate The Yes, No, Don’t Know 5 Minute
Theatre Show, and promises a revival of Joe Corrie’s In Time of Strife, a
seminal Scottish play last revived by 7:84 Theatre Company in 1982.
Creative
Scotland’s new chief executive faced an even more difficult baptism.
Janet Archer followed the much-harassed Andrew Dixon after funding
withdrawal from a large number of companies prompted a furious response
in 2012.
Like him — and Laurie Sansom — she too was from south of the border. While ethnic origin shouldn’t matter, in the current febrile atmosphere it does (thank you Alasdair Gray).
 |
| Janet Archer |
Rightly
divining that funding was at the root of the crisis, Archer spent some
time “crowd-sourcing” views on a(nother) new funding structure. This
was finally revealed recently,and seems to be a bit of a return to the
past. The reintroduction of a regular three-year funding for companies
will be welcomed, at least by those that get it.
A successful
first step perhaps, yet there is still much to do to rebuild fences. For
example, previous funding and artistic decisions led to a virtual
demise of Scottish touring theatre — especially those companies with a
social message.
We have had to rely on NToS commissions and the occasional project-funded tour by venue-based companies. Is
it too much to hope that along with longer-term funding we could see a
return to regular Scottish touring companies bringing theatre to the
village halls and pubs of Scotland?
Ironically the companies
least caught up in the furore over funding are those companies that used
to form the nexus of the debate.
The removal of the five
“national” Scottish companies — NToS, Scottish Opera, Scottish Ballet,
the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra
— from then Scottish Arts Council funding in 2007 to direct Scottish
government funding seems to have given the lie to the truism that
politicians shouldn’t get directly involved in the issuing of grants.
Cultural decisions are still a source of huge interest in Scotland. And where people get it wrong they are told so. Most
recently the bizarre decision to use the demolition of people’s homes
as a centrepiece of the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony was
overturned following an outcry from local people and commentators.
The
jury is still out on Creative Scotland’s future direction and whether a
plethora of pro-independence shows would be a blessing or a curse.
Chris
Bartter chairs Glasgow Friends of May Day. He blogs on political and
cultural issues at www.captaingrumping.blogspot.co.uk.
In this weekend's Morning Star there is a preview of some of the next two weeks activities, which you can link to here. The programme is shaping up to be one of the most interesting for some years, although I am probably too close to the original Mayfest to accept the Star's adoption of it for the preview's title!
