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.

MacBraveheart – an alternative vision of our land (and a Very Important Play)

-->In addition to the piece below I've now written a review for the Morning Star. You can find it under their headline - Confronting Scottish Demons - mine would have been Burying the Hatchback! - Anyway it's here.

In all the furore of political debate and discussion in the theatre world over the independence referendum, and the nature of Scottishness, one play on Edinburgh’s Fringe takes a very different look at our future.

Philip Differ

Writer and director Philip Differ’s, short play, MacBraveheart (a FairPley production at the Assembly Rooms, 31July - 24 August), is a wry look at what we might become in the future. It is a post-indy dystopia, if you will – and a very funny – take on what indy-Scotland could become

Unlike FairPley’s other major production - David Hayman's pro-Indy, The Pitiless Storm - also on at the Assembly Rooms, this play is a black comedy, set in a past post-Indy Scotland of bleakness and infighting. William Wallace, Robert the Bruce and Rabbie Burns wrestle with the issues of what happens next? Be careful what you wish for, because it's the early bird that takes the biscuit! It’s a very important play. It is also very funny!

Differ himself says,

"I have long wondered who we would fight with, if all other targets of our wrath were removed! So I tried to take iconic Scottish figures and set them in an extreme post-Indy landscape to answer that question!"

MacBraveheart stars Gerry McLaughlin, James McAnerney, and Scarlet Mack and is a sharp and witty unusual slant on the independence debate. It plays throughout the Fringe (until the 24 Aug - not the 11) at 13.15 in Studio 1 of the Assembly Rooms. Tickets £10 from http://www.arfringe.com/show/5/macbraveheart_the_other_scottish_play or tel:0844 693 3008.

Promo videos at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SNxYESxvUc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MBbTKGMe1E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HvrepzwafM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ms0PBDskXg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFmyId2427A

Who's Afraid of the Big Bar-L?

On Sunday an interesting new play has its public premiere at Oran Mor as part of Glasgow’s WestEnd Festival. Who’s Afraid of the Big Bar-L is a humorous look at the history of Glasgow’s most famous ‘Big Hoose’, written by well-known writer and director, Philip Differ, and commissioned by retiring Barlinnie Governor, Derek McGill

He has seized the opportunity created by a major turning point in the big prison’s history to commission the play to mark the prominent place Barlinnie has played in the folklore of Glasgow and Scotland over the last 100 plus years!

Barlinnie's Derek McGill

While this may seem unusual, it is entirely appropriate now for two reasons according to Derek, who has been a long-term promoter of arts, music and drama as alternative therapies and interventions to help prisoners desist from crime and change their ways..

“I have spent my time in the prison system investing in creative methods to help prisoners address their offending.” He said, “There is a lot of evidence especially from Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands, that this approach can reduce re-offending.”

In addition, the future of Barlinnie is currently under discussion. Reports have highlighted that the prison, built in 1882, is no longer fit for purpose. It would need significant expenditure to meet modern demands on prison life. The two options being discussed are major refurbishment, or closure and building a new prison on a different site.

“There is much debate over Barlinnie’s future.“ Derek said,  “Closure or major refurbishment are both possible outcomes, so I thought that now was a good time to look at the Bar-L and its place in Glasgow’s popular culture.”

Not content with just commissioning a play, he asked leading Glasgow-based arts production company, FairPley, to produce the play and they got well-known Scottish comedy writer and producer, Philip Differ - famous for Naked Video and Watson’s Wind-up - to write and direct it!

You can hear both Derek and Philip discuss the play and Sunday’s performance on BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland - here. The interview is 2hr and 36 mins in (at the end).

Philip said “My main concern - and the cast's too - was that the play would be authentic, that the

Philip Differ

prisoners would connect with it. After every performance we held a Q and A session with the audience and every time we were asked if any of us had 'done time'. The prisoners seemed genuinely surprised none of us had because the play was, as they put it, 'bang on'. That told us we'd hit the mark and was as rewarding for all of us as the laughs throughout the performances”.

The play is set in the future – in the London offices of Gin ‘n Tonic productions – where a former inmate of the now defunct Barlinnie, and a former prison officer, meet to discuss its history. Is G‘nT the best choice to produce the history of the Bar-L? As you might expect with a writer of Philip Differ’s pedigree, the play crackles with humour.

After a successful tour of its 'captive audience' in four of Scotland's toughest jails, it is now showing to the general public in a one-off performance in Glasgow's Oran Mor on Sunday June 1 at 7.30pm. Tickets over the bar or via this link.