Returning to the roots of MayDay's Cabarets

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Glasgow Friends of MayDay (GFoMD) have announced another stellar line-up for the sixth annual Great May Day cabaret celebrating International Workers’ Day (May Day). This annual event at Oran Mor takes place this year on MayDay itself - Monday May 1 – this year’s public holiday.

The Cabaret returns to its roots after a couple of years inclusion of drama into the celebrations, and appropriately this year’s headliners are the acclaimed and award-winning Edinburgh-based roots collective Southern Tenant Folk Union. They are ably supported by Leicester singer-songwriter and activist Grace Petrie, the welcome return of Marxist magician Ian Saville (wonder what he's got to say about Jeremy?), folk legend Arthur Johnstone, godfather of Scottish stand-up Bruce Morton, Ayrshire’s second-best ever poet Jim Monagahan, plus Fraser Speirs, Stephen Wright, and Gavin Paterson.  All hosted by Dave Anderson and supported by Thompsons Solicitors. it promises to be a great night. Tickets available (£14) from the Bar in Oran Mor or (+bf) via the facebook page or website

It’s great that the cabaret has attracted major talents like Southern Tenant Folk Union, and that Grace Petrie can come up and spend some time letting Scotland hear her fresh new style. It is especially good that there are a number of cabarets across Scotland this year.

This year, Mayday cabarets are also taking place in Irvine (Celtic SC – Fr1 28/4), West Lothian (Loganlea Miners Welfare – Sat 29/4), and Blantyre (Miners Welfare – Sun 30/4). Playing all four cabarets are core acts Ian Saville, Bruce Morton, Jim Monaghan, Fraser Speirs and Stephen Wright. They will be joined by Grace Petrie in Glasgow, Blantyre and Loganlea, rising star Maeve Mackinnon in Irvine and Blantyre, Arthur Johnstone in Irvine, Loganlea and Glasgow, and talented singer Calum Baird in Loganlea

This year’s Mayday marches will take place on different days around Scotland, with the

largest on Sunday April 30 in Glasgow, forming at George Square at 11.00 and marching to Kelvingrove Park Bandstand. Others will be on Sat April 29 (Aberdeen, Dundee and Fife) and Sat May 6 (Edinburgh and Irvine). Both Glasgow and Edinburgh’s marches feature Paul Laverty, screenwriter of  I, Daniel Blake as a keynote speaker. Details here - http://www.stuc.org.uk/campaigns-and-external-events/mayday-2017.

Other events around the MayDay weekend also include events at the Tron as part of its Mayfesto season, and a short tour of a one-man play about the miners’ strike. Undermined by Danny Mellor, touring with the backing of Unite Community, will play Aberdeen (The Blue Lamp – 26 April); Dundee ( Arthurstone Comm Lib - 27); Edinburgh (Out of the Blue Drill Hall- 28); and Glasgow (STUC-29).

Rab Noakes

Women Hold up Half the Sky

Our old friend (and MU activist) Rab Noakes has a welcome concert in Cottiers Theatre on May 7. In his 70th year and 50 years since his first paid gig, the 'songwriter-performer on top of his game' will be joined by Kathleen MacInnes and Innes Watson.And there is the prospect of a fascinating exhibition in the Glasgow Women's Library (Landressy Street). Sisterhood is Powerful - posters from the GWL museum collection is on from 11 May - 17 June.

These and many other events will be featured in the programme which is available via the GFoMD website.

Rebel Herstory of the Easter Rising

Cat Hepburn

This weekend’s Morning Star carries a Connolly Association supplement, marking the centenary of the Easter Rising. It is worthy of purchase for that alone, of course, but to ensure the Arts pages are ‘on message’, they have also published a nice interview with Cat Hepburn – the writer of Margaret Skinnider:Rebel Heart – the play whose rehearsed reading forms part of the Great MayDay Rising in Oran Mor on 2 May. Read it here, and get your tickets online (+bf) here or from the bar in Oran Mor.

The other feature of this evening that will make it irresistible is the musical presence of Arthur Johnstone, and alongside Arthur - those folk-punks, The Wakes. A package that is worth £12 of anyone's hard-earned cash!

Other events around MayDay are listed in the Glasgow Friends of MayDay programme, available on their website. http://may1st.org.uk/ . I’ll highlight some of them here as we get closer to the day.

And last, but by no means least, A little bird has whispered that an important political figure has agreed to join the Glasgow MayDay March on Sunday May 1! Assemble 11.00 George Square Glasgow.

The Red and the Green will be worn, side by side

Glasgow Friends of MayDay (GFoMD) have today announced changes for this year’s celebration of the International Workers' Festival in Glasgow. While the annual event at Oran Mor will take place again on the Monday holiday (May 2), its focus will change from a cabaret evening, to a night of drama and song.

To mark the centenary of Dublin’s Easter Rising, the title changes to the Great Mayday Rising and the first half of the evening will be the premiere of a new play produced by FairPley, about Margaret Skinnider – a Coatbridge woman who was wounded in 1916 fighting in Dublin for James Connolly’s Irish Citizen Army. The play – Margaret Skinnider:Rebel Heart - will be followed by sets by folk-punk band The Wakes, and the political doyen of folk, Arthur Johnstone.

We discussed the event and agreed that it seemed appropriate to mark the centenary by raising the profile of a lesser-known link between Ireland and Scotland during the rising. Plus to ensure that our traditional musical celebration gets a good airing, both the Wakes and Arthur will ensure that ‘the red and the green will be worn side by side’ as Hamish Henderson put it!

Arthur Johnstone

The play is written by Cat Hepburn, from research by Maggie Chetty, who also chairs the Committee set up to highlight the links between Scotland and the Easter Rising. It stars Clare Gray, Julie Hale and Erin McCardie. Maggie Chetty said “Margaret Skinnider was a remarkable woman. A schoolteacher, a markswoman, a revolutionary, a true rebel heart, but like so many women her story is obscure. I felt this was an appropriate time to celebrate her courage and her lifelong commitment to progress.”

This year’s Mayday marches will take place on different days around Scotland, with the largest on Sunday May 1 in Glasgow - this year it will rally in the Old Fruitmarket. Others will be on Sat April 30 (Aberdeen, Dundee and Fife) and Sat May 7 (Edinburgh and Irvine).

Other events during the two weeks either side of the MayDay weekend also reflect the centenary – with a walk entitled Glasgow and the Irish revolution looking at historical sites in Glasgow connected with struggle in Ireland - this one is already full, and Brian and Martin McCardie’s one–person play, Connolly, premiering on May 6/7 in the Tron as part of its Mayfesto season.

In addition this year sees the second Radical Film Network (Un)Conference in Glasgow over the weekend of MayDay, and its associated Film Festival includes a number of union and work-related films, mostly at the STUC Centre. In particular an event Blacklisting – demonstrating the use of film by those campaigning against their blacklisting due to TU activities.

The programme, and details of Margaret Skinnider:Rebel Heart are both available via the GFoMD website. http://may1st.org.uk/

Portraying the Red Clydesiders - and young women of the East End!

A couple of events to draw your attention to today. Firstly an event slightly detached from its original slot in the Mayday celebrations - it was postponed from the original date of May 5 as that was only two days away from the General Election. and now takes place on Tuesday 26 May at 7.00pm in the STUC offices on Woodlands Road (above the Stand).

In one of the interesting and different talks put on by the Scottish Morning Star Campaign Committee as part of their Our Class, Our Culture series, John Quinn of the Glasgow School of Art will be talking about 'Portraying the Red Clydesiders' - with a slightly different angle on Maxton, Maclean, Shinwell, Gallacher et al. These events are always worth attending and manage to give us a interesting and political perspective on culture that we think we know about. Its a free event, so what's not to like?

In other political cultural events, the Southside Fringe Festival has just finished. One of its intriguing

shows was a newly written and composed musical on the 1888 Matchgirls Strike in London's East End. I say a new musical, because it seems that this strike has been the inspiration for two earlier musicals. In the 1960's both Joyce Adcock and Gordon Caleb (Strike a Light), and Bill Owen and Tony Russell (The Matchgirls) wrote musical treatments of the dispute, one of which (Strike a Light) played Glasgow's Alhambra Theatre in 1966.

Be that as it may, writer, Fatima Uygun says she deliberately didn't look at either until after she had written her own! The show - which played in The Steamie - part of Govanhill Baths was successful overall, but there are some elements that need attention, as I say in my review in the Morning Star - here. The cast and musicians are well worth some more exposure.

Reasons to be MayDay - part 2

....The main event of the holiday period is the March and Rally today (3 May). From 11.00 people will gather in George Square and then march to the O2 Academy in Bridge Street. The March is being lead by young people and will rally in the O2. A range of speakers is headed by Seumas Milne, the Guardian correspondent. Also speaking will be Rosa Salih of the Glasgow Girls, a representative of the U.S. Fast Food Forward campaign for TU rights. Entertaining the masses while they wander round the stalls, will be Glasgow's own The Wakes.

A variety of political groupings will have their own events following the rally, but the evening delivers the second performance of From the Calton to Catalonia. Martin McCardie's successful and packed revival in the Calton last night is followed by this performance in Glasgow's Oran Mor. Maureen Carr leads an ensemble cast in Willy and John Maley's story of their dad's experiences in the International Brigade. Tickets £12, from the bar in Oran Mor, or via TicketWeb (including a booking fee).

Arthur Johnstone

On the Monday holiday, the now well-known Great MayDay Cabaret fills the venue at Oran Mor. Tommy Sands, the Irish singer and activist leads a star-studded cast that includes performance poet, Elvis McGonagall, actress Juliet Cadzow comedians Bruce Morton and Susie McCabe, and singer Siobhan Miller. They are joined by regulars Arthur Johnstone, Fraser Speirs and Stephen Wright, in what promises to be a cracking night. Again tickets available over the bar and via the online supplier This time at £14.

Then there is a gap during the week (is something happening next week?) although you can get another chance to see From the Calton to Catalonia if you're prepared to travel to Bo'ness on the 8 May (Barony Theatre), or Greenock on the 10 (Beacon Arts Centre). If you're staying in Glasgow next week, another great way to wind up the MayDay celebrations would be to see the Love Music, Hate Racism screening of Clash:Westway to the World on May 10 in the CCA (at 8.00pm). Free but ticketed from the CCA website.

All in all, Glasgow’s significant contribution to the International Workers' Day's festivities!

Reasons to be MayDay - Part 1

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As we approach the main weekend of MayDay it is maybe a good time to pick out some highlights in the programme. Particularly as many activists of whatever political flavour will be somewhat exercised on things other than cultural events.

Friday 1 May is a very busy day. As might be expected, the coincidence of May 1 and the end of the week has thrown up a range of events. Earliest on the timetable is an interesting project run jointly by Glasgow University and Glasgow Museums.  Banner Tales aims to put banners from museum storage back into the communities they came from. And match them with local people with connections, either direct or historical, to them. The first of a series of events along these lines is today at 11.45am at Castlemilk Community Centre, the banners will be those of Castlemilk Anti-Poll

Tax Campaign, the Tailors and Garment workers union, and one of many cooperative women's Guild banners. It is planned to continue until 3.15pm. There will be further events later in the month in Barmulloch(16) and Govan(30).

Later in the day the newly-formed Clarion Cycle Club takes to the roads of Glasgow City centre for a Critical Mass ride out. Wearing red and giving it up to make some noise, they meet at Glasgow Green at 4.30pm. In the evening, there are a few events to choose from. 

In the Calton Heritage Centre at 7.30pm the first rehearsed reading of From the Calton to Catalonia, takes place. Starring Maureen Carr, Davie McKay and Bruce Morton and directed by Martin McCardie, this is a revival of Willy and John Maley's play about their father's experiences in the International Brigade. First performed by a young Gary Lewis at 1990's MayFest, this showing has had the support of Gary in its development. It is apparently pretty much sold out, so it might be better to try its other Glasgow performance on Sunday 3 May in Oran Mor. If you're near Irvine, the play is at the Celtic Club on Saturday, and also plays the Barony, Bo'ness(8) and the Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock on the 10. Tickets, various prices, from the venues via www.fairpley.com.

Also tonight, there is a Love Music, Hate Racism MayDay gig in Stereo. This is at 8.00pm starring

Young People's Army and Big Taj, Cutty's Gym, Pronto Mama and Quyeen (NrthrnXposure) and supported by the MU and Unite. Tickets are £5 from Ticketscotland. And afterwards across the lane in the Old Hairdressers, there will be a Mayday Social!

Or if your particular preferences are for music and performance poetry, you might want to try a new evening in the Steamie, the venue at Govanhill Baths. There at 7.00pm you'll be entertained by Viv Gee, Lorna McKinnon, "The Matchgirls", Colin Poole, Tickle, and The Unite! Fight! Sing! Choir including a special guest performance by Leyla Josephine. Your host will be Jim Monaghan. Entrance by donation - pay what you can.

If film is your bag, there are an intriguing couple of screenings tonight and on Saturday afternoon. Tonight at 6.30pm in the Gilmorehill Centre at Glasgow University, the award-winning documentary about the killing of 34 striking miners at the South African, Marikana pit gets a premiere in Glasgow. Entry is free, but it is first come, first served.

Tomorrow at the GFT, at 3.00pm Maria Fyfe, Chair of the Remember Mary Barbour Association, introduces the 1984 documentary by the Sheffield Film Co-op about the Rent Strikes in Furst World War Glasgow - Red Skirts on Clydeside. Widely credited with re-opening the history of women in the Red Clyde struggles,cut will be interesting to see how far we have come - or not! Tickets, £5 from the GFT.

Outside Glasgow, Saturday is dominated by MayDay Marches and Rallies. In Irvine, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dundee the afternoon is dominated by the sounds of bands and rallies. Details from the STUC here. Glasgow's will be held on Sunday at 11.00 from George Sq. more details in our second part, tomorrow!

Gary Lewis and Tommy Sands lead Glasgow's MayDay festivities.

--> MayDay festivals have been celebrated since pre-Christian times. Earliest celebrations marked the beginning of summer and linked to many pagan festivals including the Gaelic Beltane. In 1891 MayDay was formally adopted as International Workers Day – primarily to mark the anniversary of the 1886 Chicago Haymarket Massacre, when four strikers were killed when police opened fire on a demonstration after a bomb was thrown. 

Despite the gravity of this event, and maybe because of earlier festival links, the celebratory side of International Workers’ Day is longstanding and international, especially in Glasgow. The story of labour in the west of Scotland is peppered with cultural input – choirs from the Orpheus to the Eurydice, theatre from the Glasgow Workers’ Theatre to 7:84 and Wildcat, Glasgow Trades Council even once ran a film society! This is the background to the increasing range of activities now being organised in the city by a range of TU, campaigning and labour organisations.

The now hugely successful Great MayDay Cabaret, organised by Glasgow Friends of MayDay (GFoMD), celebrates its third anniversary at Oran Mor on the Mayday Monday (4) evening. This year’s headliner is celebrated Irish singer and peace activist , Tommy Sands. Also performing are poet Elvis McGonagall, actress Juliet Cadzow, comedians Bruce Morton and Susie McCabe, and singers Arthur Johnstone and Siobhan Miller. Dave Anderson comperes.


In addition, Glasgow-based film actor Gary Lewis (Billy Elliot, Gangs of New York) stars in a specially commissioned rehearsed reading of John and Willy Maley’s play – From the Calton to Catalonia – republished last year by Calton Books. This play about their father’s experiences in the International Brigades launches, appropriately enough, in the Calton, then goes on a small tour during the period including Irvine’s Harbour Arts centre (2) and Oran Mor (3).

Chris Bartter, Chair of Glasgow Friends of Mayday said “This year’s celebrations have moved up a gear. Many more organisations and people are planning events and we are delighted that we’re able to add a theatre performance to the already successful Cabaret.”

Trade Union Councils throughout Scotland continue to organise MayDay marches and rallies on the Mayday Weekend (Sat and Sun 2/3 May). Plans and speakers are still being finalised.

An interesting project run by Glasgow Museums and Glasgow University plans to get trade union and campaign banners out of museum storage and into local communities, where people with a connection to the struggle will tell their story. One is scheduled in Glasgow’s Castlemilk on the afternoon of May 1 with banners from the local Anti-Poll Tax Union, and the Tailors’ and Garment Workers’ Union. Similar events are planned in Barmulloch and Govan later.

Love Music, Hate Racism have organised a gig in Glasgow’s Stereo on the evening of May 1 and are also showing the film, The Clash: Westway to the World on Sunday 10 May at the CCA.

Other film showings, include the third in a series of film showings at the CCA organised by a local GMB Branch. Linking International Workers’ Memorial Day (28 April) with MayDay, they are showing Ken Loach’s The Navigators on April 30.

A new MayDay tradition of walks through Glasgow’s heritage continues, with the Friends of MayDay organising a Women, War and Rent Strike walk on Saturday April 25. And the Glasgow Women’s Library has one of its Women of the Merchant City walks two weeks later (9 May).

Of course established venues often have relevant events – most obviously The Tron’s Mayfesto festival – an important part of which will be Rites, a powerful NToS and Scottish Refugee Council-backed piece by Cora Bissett on female genital mutilation. David MacLennan’s legacy– A Play, a Pie and a Pint- also serves up The War hasn’t Started Yet – a view from modern Russia from May 4–9.

Amongst a number of talks and discussions, the ever-interesting Morning Star Our Class, Our Culture series has an intriguing presentation by John Quinn of Glasgow School of Art – Portraying the Heroes of Red Clydeside in the STUC on 5 May. 

The festival events in Glasgow take place in the weeks before and after the MayDay weekend (this year Sat 2 – Mon 4) and are organised by a wide variety of trade union, cultural and campaigning bodies.

Tickets for both The (Third) Great Mayday Cabaret (4 May) and From the Calton to Catalonia on the 3 May are available from Oran Mor (over the bar) or via their website - http://oran-mor.co.uk/whats-on/ (booking fee).

(Currently the OM website is being revamped, so tickets for the cabaret on line are available from ticketweb here - http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/event/great-may-day-cabaret-tickets/163277. And the OM performance of From the Calton to Catalonia, here - http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/event/from-the-calton-to-catalonia-tickets/167595).

The full 2015 programme is due to be published early in April. It will be available on http://may1st.org.uk as well as Oran Mor, the STUC, trade unions and other outlets.

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.

May Day Celebrations take shape!

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!

Obviously one of the highlights is The Great MayDay Cabaret - the second Glasgow version of which is scheduled for Monday May 5 in Glasgow's Oran Mor (tickets still available over the bar for £13 and (+ a booking fee) on line at www.oran.mor. 

There are also healthy looking new shoots at Dumfries (Friday May 2)-tickets (£6/5) from Ian @ 01556 650459 and at Blantyre (Saturday May 3)-tickets (£5) from South Lanarks. TUC on 01698 454690.

Rab Noakes

Eleanor Morton

Starring in Glasgow is last year's headliner, Mark Thomas, and well-known singer-songwriter, Rab Noakes will be appearing at all three events, as will last year's hit, Marxist magician Ian Saville. Comedians Bruce, and Eleanor Morton (no relation, and catch her before she becomes famous!), moothie maestro Fraser Speirs, and political song guru, Arthur Johnstone round off the final (Glasgow) show.


Of course the MayDay marches and rallies are scheduled across Scotland, with the biggest in Glasgow on the 4 May. The main speaker will be author and commentator, Owen Jones. The march assembles in George Square at 11.30 with a collection for food banks in Glasgow. It rallies in the O2 Academy.

Elsewhere there is a book launch for a new print of From the Calton to Catalonia, a fundraising comedy afternoon for Scottish Left Review, a social for Cuba and an appreciation of UCS cartoonist and author, Bob Starret. The full programme can be found on the Glasgow Friends of MayDay website, here. Hope to see you at Oran Mor on the 5!

Keep your culture on your left

After an enforced absence due to a family bereavement, the Captain leaps back into bloggery with news of some imminent cultural milestones, notice of another radical edge to next years Celtic Connections and a little nudge to radical groups and organisations to begin preparations for MayDay next year.

David Hayman marks the legacy of Bill Speirs

David Hayman

Later this week, on Thursday 29 November, the second annual Bill Speirs Foundation lecture is being given by Director and Actor (and good friend of Bill), David Hayman. This lecture is entitled Activate Your Humanity and Change the World. 

It is being hosted in the Deeprose Theatre (Room A005, Govan Mbeki Building) of Glasgow Caledonian University from 5.30pm. It will take the form of a lecture, followed by Q&A with David. There will be light refreshments afterwards, appropriately enough in the Govan Mbeki Garden Cafe! 

Entry is free, but ticketed, and a collection for the foundation will be taken. Tickets from http://billspeirs.eventbrite.com/. Any questions please contact Jaki Speirs on +44 (0)141 273-1610 or email jaki.speirs@gcu.ac.uk. 

This is the second in what is planned to be a series of annual events, marking the social, political, cultural and international legacy of former STUC General Secretary, Scottish Labour executive member, International campaigner, and 7:84 Theatre Company Director, Bill Speirs. It promises to be a great evening!

The Morning Star of Scotland

Another interesting event in the campaign to grow the left in Scotland is the launch of the Scottish edition of the Morning Star on Saturday 1 December at the STUC from 7.30 - 10.30pm. The Morning Star, as many on the left are aware, is the only left-wing daily paper in the UK. It is owned - not by multinational media empires, or even porn kings, but by its readers, like me, through a Co-operative (the People’s Press Printing Co-op). 

In recent years its sales here have been declining greatly, as the paper (along with other small-circulation dailies) has been refused access to a late night flight delivering the papers to Scotland. The lack of same-day availability has proved almost fatal, and led to a spiral of decline both in circulation and in coverage of Scottish issues

However, some of you may have started to notice it appearing on shelves in your local newsagents. Not only that, but these papers were currently dated! This is due to the Star management having taken two bold steps. Firstly, setting up a second printing source in Oldham, to ensure that the paper intended for Scotland and the North of England can access transport to these areas in time to get to us for the relevant day, and secondly appointing both a reporter on the staff with responsibility for Scotland (Rory MacKinnon) And a local journalist - the talented Malcolm Burns - who is keeping his eye on the scene in Scotland.

The Co-op funeralcare brass band

The event on Saturday is a Scottish Edition launch event. The St Andrew’s Weekend celebration is a mixture of speeches and musical celebration being organised jointly with the Scottish Co-operative Party. Again, it is a free event, but there will be a collection for the Star. Speakers are Richard Bagley (Editor of the Morning Star); Mary Lockhart (President of the Scottish Co-operative Party); Richard Leonard, (Political officer of the GMB), and Pat Rafferty, (Scottish Secretary of Unite the union). This part will be chaired by Agnes Tomie, (President of the STUC). 

Musical backing is being provided by the award-winning, Co-operative Funeralcare band, with some soloists also playing with prominent Scottish musician and composer, Eddie McGuire. Young performer, Marc Livingstone and evergreen singer Arthur Johnstone will complete the bill. For further information foster631@btinternet.com.

See you at both of these!!

Match This!

If you can’t get to Glasgow Caley on Thursday, and are in the Hamilton Area, you could do worse than to get yourself down to Hamilton Town House Library for 7.00pm. In a promising new library project, UNISON’s South Lanarkshire Branch and the local Leisure & Culture Trust are hosting an event with author Louise Raw. 

She will be promoting her new book, Strike a Light, telling how the women workers at Bryant and May in London's east end sparked the rise of new unionism and helped to build the modern trade union movement. 

Celtic Connections maintains its political cutting edge

It is good to see that the new programme for Celtic Connections, maintains the welcome radical edge started in last years festival. While a more detailed listing will come later, the return of Tony Benn, with a preview of his biographical film Will and Testament, 

particularly as he is joined by Comedian Mark Thomas to chair a Q&A afterwards, and with Scotland’s folk ‘royalty’ (though they wouldn’t thank you for that description), Sheena Wellington  and Arthur Johnstone, looks like a major highlight.

Sheena Wellington. The folk singers' folk singer

Arthur will also sing in Songs of Struggle. A collective series that emerged out of last year’s UCS Anniversary concerts. More detail later, but again a highlight of the programme. Concerts that also look good, include Red Cydeside, with Dave Swarbrick, and Scots in the Spanish Civil War, curated by Ian Macalman. More later!!

Prepare for MayDay

Finally, the potential for much of this cultural energy to re-emerge around next year’s MayDay celebrations in Scotland, looks hopeful. An early approach to a number of organisations from the Glasgow Friends of MayDay has started them preparing to stage events. 

The GFoMD also plan to build on last years successful MayDay programme, and in particular, are looking for bids from Trades Union Council’s outside Glasgow to see if we can’t develop the successful Concert into a short ‘tour’ around MayDay. Why not check what your TUC or campaigning group has planned, and get in touch with GFoMD via FairPley @ 0141 418 0562 or swright@fairpley.com or chrisbartter@btinternet.com 

And did those feet...?

It is probably taking a step too far to see Danny Boyle’s inclusion of suffragettes, trade unions and the NHS in his Olympic opening ceremony as a left ‘claim-staking’ of cultural events in the UK. (Mind you wasn’t it great that so many right-wing politicians and media made fools of themselves berating the ‘lefty propaganda’?). However, the left has certainly, in recent years evinced an increasing interest and involvement in cultural and artistic events.

A number of items at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival point to this revival of socialist and working-class interest in, and use of, cultural and artistic activities to reach people and to raise their profile in general.

Tony Benn

At the Assembly Rooms, produced/programmed this year by Tommy Sheppard (himself no stranger to radical ideas), old skool left Labour ex-Parliamentarian, Tony Benn will be taking the stage to introduce a forthcoming filmed biography - Will and Testament. This has been over a year in the gestation and covers, among many struggles, Benn’s involvement in the 1971/2 Upper Clyde Shipbuilders work-in. This was a struggle he remembered last year as he took part in the Gala Concert staged to mark the 40^th Anniversary in Glasgow’s Mitchell Theatre - many attendees will remember the film crew following Tony around.

Woody Guthrie

In addition a number of the other participants in that concert (and the subsequent Celtic Connections concert) are coming back together to mark another working-class anniversary - the centenary of the birth of Woody Guthrie, dust bowl poet and singer, communist and inspirer of many of today’s folk singers, most notably Bob Dylan. Arthur Johnstone, Alistair MacDonald, David Anderson and Sheena Wellington lead the line up paying homage to Guthrie.

While this might be seen as the product of successful concerts and the desire of a new producer/programmer to strike out in a new direction from his predecessor, in fact these events are the latest examples of might be seen as a resurgence of ‘socialist culture’ that seems to be taking hold.

MayDay

Previous events included the UCS 40^th Anniversary Concerts, and other highlights like the screening of Cinema Action’s films of the Work-in, but there are also the two years of cultural activity around Glasgow’s traditional MayDay march. Although low-key, these are increasingly being distinguished by the rise in the number of campaigning organisations staging events. Last year the programme featured Scottish Left Review, Cuba Solidarity, and the International Brigades Association as well as Glasgow’s Trades Union Council and the co-ordinating Glasgow Friends’s of MayDay.

Our Class, Our Culture

Also Scotland is seeing a series of increasingly respected Morning Star Our Class, Our Culture discussion sessions. These last have featured well-known artistic performers, writers and composers, such as Dave MacLennan, Alistair Findlay and William Sweeney, and have covered the contribution of different genres to working class struggle, and the impact of different artists - like Robert Tressell. 

Tressell also features at Edinburgh with a production of Stephen Lowe’s two-handed dramatisation of his Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, produced by Townsend Productions and Unite the union, and a South African Season also features, led by Athol Fugard’s Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act and Woza Albert! from The Market Theatre in Johannesburg (at the (other) Assembly).

The awakening of trade unions to the profile-raising and appeal-broadening sides to this cultural activity is significant. The UCS and Tressell productions have been financed largely by Unite the union, and the other large player, UNISON has been running a number of interesting and innovative Mobilise sessions around Scotland - bringing singing, music, comedy and cartooning directly into the fight. 

A 'Golden Thread'

As someone who has long argued that the use of culture and the arts should be much more of a ‘natural’ element for trade unions, and the left in general, these developments are welcome. I don’t think I am alone, either, in seeing in the flashmob, and other theatrical stunts produced by UK Uncut and the Occupy movements, a practical application of this link. While it should not, (and cannot successfully) be separated from the need to have a clear political direction and a planned campaign, the use of music, drama, imaginative writing and all the entertainment of a well produced event needs to be increased. 

After all, as Boyle himself said his ceremony had  “a single golden thread of purpose - the idea of Jerusalem - of the better world, the world of real freedom and true equality…”. Maybe my original theory doesn’t sound a step too far after all! I suspect Woody Guthrie would have subscribed to Boyle's " ...belief that we can build Jerusalem. And that it will be for everyone”.