Artists against Austerity

From time to time this blog has been known to go on (and on) about the importance of cultural work in the struggle for a socialist and just society, Occasionally it has been known to hanker for the days when labour movement  bodies used theatre, film and books to both entertain and further the struggle; to create A Good Night Out in John McGrath’s memorable phrase.

John McGrath (pic Scotsman)

Indeed Joyce MacMillan in today's Scotsman, reminds us that this January is the 12th Anniversary of John's death, and he (along with others like the recently lamented Dave Maclennan), was a major talent in the development of artistic work (in his case popular theatre) to further political aims, although the involvement of Trades Councils, Left Book Clubs and Workers’ Theatre Groups pre-dates John’s important contribution. Yet another theme, particularly apposite currently in Scotland, is for the left to come together, to park Yes/No antipathy and to start to mend the divisions of that debate. 

That’s why I’ve always been heartened by initiatives that the labour movement takes to utilise the hugely sympathetic and untapped talent that is out there in ‘CultureLand’. The activity now taking place around MayDay in Glasgow, a similar blossoming around the St Andrew’s Day Rallies in Scotland and the film show series tentatively undertaken by a local GMB branch, are excellent examples of things that can be done!

It is even better news to hear that one of the major bodies that has been largely successful in drawing broad support to the Anti Austerity struggle is also to dip its toe into the artistic pool in Scotland.

The Peoples’ Assembly against Austerity in Scotland has put out a call for the formation of an ‘Artists against Austerity’ assembly in the New Year. The aim is to put together a multi-platform arts event to be held before the 2015 General Election. They are looking for artists from all disciplines to come to an assembly in either Glasgow or Edinburgh on Saturday 31 January to pull together a steering group. I suggest that some of the people involved in the initiatives already mentioned could usefully help this one?

More details can be found here, or email artistsassemblyscotland@gmail.com by 18 January 2015 to confirm your attendance or if you have any queries or questions! Or if you want to contact me direct, I can point you to the relevant people.

Referendum shows weren't the highlight.

The Morning Star asked me to review the cultural side of the struggle for 2014. This is what I felt were the key moments of an eventful year. Next year already looks as if it too, is shaping up to be a goody - with a retrospective of Ewan McColl's music, and a celebration of Arthur Johnstone featuring at Celtic Connections 2015.

The 2014 referendum debate inevitably had an impact on this year’s productions. However the domination of pro-Yes sympathies in Scotland’s artistic community didn’t lead to as much important work as anticipated. Successful shows used the debate as a stepping-off point to examine the nature of Scotland, like Rona Munro’s James plays for the National Theatre of Scotland (NToS) at the Edinburgh Festival. 

Front looked at the 1WW from both sides

 

However it is a production in that festival that addressed a different political issue that gets my vote as outstanding. Front, a Flemish production from a German company about the first world war in Flemish, German, French and English was outstanding. Using both Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front and Henri Barbusse’s Under Fire as source material, this was a shocking, emotional and political view from both sides of the line. 

For those who said that the referendum was too close to allow that perspective, NToS also produced the Yes, No, Don’t Know Show, a series of short pieces curated by David Greig and the late and much-missed Dave MacLennan, which was vibrant and humorous. 

Celtic Connections was referendum-lite. Rebel Musics saw Dick Gaughan and Dave Swarbrick  explore the connections between reggae and Scottish music, the Roaming Roots Review’s look at West Coast US music sparkled and the powerful Imelda May rocked out.

Fraser Speirs on the moothy. Rab Noakes on Guitar

Glasgow’s MayDay Cabaret delivered a sell-out concert for the second year in the city’s Oran Mor, with stand-out performances from Bruce Morton and Rab Noakes.

Pro-Yes productions dominated the Edinburgh Festival fringe. Much was poor but David Hayman (pictured) in a A Pitiless Storm rose above the herd. Bravely, Phil Differ’s MacBraveheart had a pop at all sides and crackled with language gags, while Mark Thomas’s history of betrayal, Cuckooed, delivered a thoughtful story. 

 

We lost both 7:84/Wildcat/Play, Pie & Pint founder Dave MacLennan and politician Tony Benn this

The late, and much-missed Dave Maclennan

year. With typical Glasgow resolve, both became the subjects of excellent celebratory concerts, with a galaxy of stars marking the passing of two major talents.

Film of the year for me must go to Pride, the story of the LGBT community and their support for the striking miners in 1984-5. Although flawed by the failure to recognise the politics of a main character — Mark Ashton became general secretary of the Young Communist League — it still highlighted the strong links built between different communities under attack. 

Also heartening was the increasing use of cultural events by campaigns. A series of workers’ films is planned by a local GMB branch and  a range of talks and films was staged by Hope Not Hate in Glasgow around the anti-racist St Andrews Day rally. And of course the Morning Star’s own Our Class, Our Culture series continued its success.

Hoping for a Cultural Feast in a year of challenges

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.

Do you like it here now? Are you settling in?

The decision by new National Theatre of Scotland (NToS) supremo Laurie Sansom to commission two of Scotland’s finest drama writers/producers - David Greig and Dave MacLennan - to collaborate in producing drama inspired by the referendum ‘debate’ has prompted this response (at last), and possibly even given the lie to Alasdair Gray’s deliberate polemic against the Anglo-centric control (as he sees it) of Scotland’s art establishment.

David Greig

Dave MacLennan

His attack on English people in the arts certainly stirred up the respective nationalist tribes - as he presumably wanted, Early attackers often did themselves no favours by labelling Gray as a racist without reading the essay, although defenders were often disingenuous in the extreme to suggest that offence was being manufactured by the recipients, rather than given by the perpetrator.

It is clear (I think) that Gray is not a racist, but someone of his huge writing talents must be aware of

Alasdair Gray

the impact that his choice of words has. Labelling people ‘colonists’ is obviously designed to tar them with an imperial brush, but ‘settlers’ too - albeit a lesser accusation - is too often bracketed with the adjective ‘white’ to be a neutral term. Indeed it is not that long ago that the advent of the avowedly anti-English ‘Settler Watch’ in NE Scotland caused the SNP to exclude them as racist.

Vicky Featherstone

It is a matter then of considerable regret, that a man of obvious talent, like Gray chooses to have a pop at the people he says control funding/commissioning of Scottish artistic talent on the basis of their place of birth and nationality. Had he done so on the basis of being fully paid-up members of the establishment there may have been more accuracy in his attacks, but to include people like Vicky Featherstone - Sansom’s predecessor as Director of NToS - indicates how far off the radar Gray has gone.

While one can have reservations about some of the directions taken by NToS at the beginning, (and surely any artistic venture must be given space to experiment?) surely the Director who funded and developed Black Watch has some understanding of Scottish culture? Interestingly enough, Black Watch director, John Tiffany also hails from South of the border (Yorkshire - in fact), and has had some pointed things to say about Gray’s comments - not the least of which is to identify the oft-ignored fact that many parts of England also feel badly ruled by London and the South.

In addition to both (so-far) Heads of NToS, and Janet Archer, the new Head of Creative Scotland (surely a much more poisoned chalice) a cursory look round prominent artists who have contributed to the Scottish arts scene produces a fair sprinkling of ‘non-Scots’. Composer Peter Maxwell Davies, for example, has lived in Orkney for 42 years (as long as I have lived in Scotland - not that there are any other links!). Director and playwright John McGrath was born and brought up in Birkenhead and North Wales - anyone suggest that The Cheviot... or Ane Satire of the Four Estaites shows a lack of understanding of contemporary (or historical) Scottish culture?

Interestingly enough in a recent Herald article, Keith Bruce pointed out that choreographer, Matthew Bourne has asked some really serious points about Scottish national identity in his ballet Highland Fling. Indeed he (unusually) has let Scottish Ballet stage it (he normally reserves his work to his own company). It will not come as a surprise to readers that Matthew Bourne too, comes from anent these shores (Walthamstow, since you ask).

The kind of offensive polemic that Gray unleashed is not the tack that the two David’s will take. Although both are enthusiastic and impassioned political beings, I had to read the article to find out which was heading up which side of the debate! Hopefully we can look forward to articulated drama about the real issues - rather than where we were all born.