David MacLennan – Plays, Politics and Popularity

--> This is a slightly longer and more personal version of the obituary I wrote for The Morning Star. That version can be accessed here.

David MacLennan (June 19, 1948 - June 13, 2014)

I was in Italy when the news came through via a friend on Twitter. David MacLennan, the theatre writer, director and producer, had lost his short battle with Motor Neurone Disease. The co-founder of 7:84 Theatre Company and Wildcat Productions, the man who had been part of the foundation of MayFest, and who created the Play, Pie and a Pint format, who was in a new ascendancy with the National Theatre of Scotland (NToS) commissioning him and David Greig to co-curate The Yes, No, Don't Know, Show, had left us and in particular, left a huge hole at the centre of Scottish Theatre, Political Theatre and Popular Theatre.

I first came across David when Nalgo, one of UNISON's predecessor unions made their first break through in joint working with political theatre. They reunited 7:84 Theatre company co-founders, John McGrath and David by commissioning their production, On the pigs back, in 1983. The show was a street theatre production of typical 7:84/Wildcat wit and political polemic that toured all across Scotland in a double decker bus that doubled as the backdrop! Getting the bus onto ferries to Stornoway and Lerwick was not the least of the problems!

This was part of Nalgo's first major campaign against cuts and sparked a raft of similar union-supported productions with both Wildcat and 7:84 dealing with the politics of the Thatcher years. including Bed Pan Alley sponsored by NUPE. It also included Nalgo's sponsorship of The Steamie which opened at a disused public wash house in Govan, one of my favourite venues! Ultimately, these initiatives also led to the establishment of MayFest in 1983, an arts festival based on trade union MayDay celebrations. Typically David (and his then wife Ferelith Lean) were in at the start of this too!

David's (and Wildcat's) uncompromising, if extremely humorous, politics – they produced plays on the Miners’ Strike, Ireland and Rock and Roll! - eventually led to a falling out with the then Scottish Arts Council, and funding was withdrawn. Despite a lengthy campaign, it was the end for Wildcat. MayFest too, shut after a different funder withdrew support (for different reasons).

After some years on individual projects and commissions, David launched another innovative and popular initiative. Entrepreneur Colin Beattie's new bar and venue, Oran Mor, was looking for artistic projects to fill its cavernous spaces! And A Play, a Pie and a Pint was born! This format, allowing people to leave work, have a drink and a bite to eat and see a short play - all in the space of a lunch hour - quickly established itself in a completely commercial environment. Spin-offs to both other venues, and other art forms (a Cocktail, a Canapé, and a Concerto, anyone?) showed its versatility, and ultimately the idea of short, popular plays in non standard venues was taken up by the NToS itself in its Five Minute Theatre initiatives.

Although now successful commercially, David's political commitment was maintained right till the end. He addressed one of the first Morning Star cultural events in Scotland, shortly after the success of A Play, A Pie & A Pint. He introduced himself as a 'convinced Marxist'! His final project - co-curating the Yes, No, Don't Know Show - involved a series of 5 minute plays all dealing with the current referendum on Scottish Independence, (David's 'No' view, being balanced by David Greig's 'Yes' one!)

Political, yes, but not didactic, David knew the need to entertain was part of the production. In John McGrath, his brother-in-law's phrase, the production had to offer an audience, 'A good night out', if it was to connect politically.

His vision, and the ability to sense a successful theatre idea, kept with him from The Cheviot, The Stag and the Black, Black Oil, 7:84 Scotland's magnificent opener (from a film of which there is a rare shot of a MacLennan appearance on stage!) through his other joint collaborations (with Dave Anderson) in Wildcat, right up to the hugely successful Play, Pie and Pint, series. This last has been copied all over the world. It would be a fitting tribute, were David's political ideas similarly distributed! The story, as yet, has no end.

David’s loss is keenly felt by the Scottish theatre community, the many colleagues who worked with him and the close friends he had, but the biggest loss will be to his wife, Juliet and their son Shane. My sympathy goes out to them both.

  

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.

Tales from the city-the fourth. Transports of delight.

Thank you, driver

A lesser-profiled event at the Assembly Rooms was a series of performances of Love Letters to the Public Transport System. Produced by the National Theatre of Scotland, this is a gem of a production, written, produced and performed by Molly Taylor. The premise of the monologue are a number of individual stories about love and busses, which spark other thoughts about the use we make of trains and boats and planes (or, well, busses), and the people who drive them. 

Molly Taylor

The piece cleverly interweaves individual's stories with Molly’s own attempts to contact bus and train drivers who have taken her on key journeys - and her lack of success in doing so. What it also sparked for me was a memory of my first impressions of Glasgow busses. Arriving in the city from the ‘underbelly of British capitalism’ I was struck by two things. Firstly, how no-one in Glasgow ever seemed to press a bell to get the bus to stop, getting up and standing by the driver (or on the platform) seemed to be the practice; but secondly how everybody thanked the driver on their way off! 

While the bell etiquette has changed, the #thankyoudriver  seemed to me then, (and still does) a remarkable practice that is not repeated anywhere else (Molly confirms that it isn’t the practice even in a similar city, like Liverpool). She ascribes the difference (in part) to the fact that elsewhere passengers exit busses through a centre door away from the driver, but although this has some superficial appeal, surely in Glasgow the history as elsewhere, was that busses had back platforms. What did Glasgow’s passengers do to express their gratitude then? Shout down the bus? Pass thanks to the conductor? No, I thought then, and still think that it is a positive decision by Glasgow (and, she says, other central belt passengers) to go out of their way to acknowledge people working on their behalf in public services. Despite much-publicised (and serious) increases in the abuse of our public service workers, and the rising tide of those insulated from public contact by headphones and MP3 players, it continues. Long may it do so.

The performance also touches on another (and probably linked) aspect of public transport and our reaction to it. Molly finds it impossible to actually track down the particular drivers that took her about. She does speak to drivers who have won service awards, nominated by their passengers for their care and work, but it seems very difficult to get to an individual driver (after the event) to say thanks. Or even to get the companies to respond! She contrasts this with the facilities set up to process, deal and respond to complaints. Are we become the destroyer of services? Are we so concerned with our own needs that we fail to tell people thanks for what they do for us? And more seriously, is there no room for public service operators to set up ways to reach individuals with praise, rather than only blame?

Love letters has already performed in Glasgow at the Tron, if it reappears near you, get along to see it. Quirky, humorous and ultimately positive, it is beautifully written and acted. It itself, goes some way to attempt to redress the balance.