Joyce McMillan online…

All my writing on theatre and general social/political issues is available online here.

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© Joyce McMillan 2011

Why The Unionist Parties Must Offer A Positive Alternative To Independence: Or Face Oblivion In Scotland – Column 27.1.12

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JOYCE MCMILLAN for The Scotsman 27.1.12
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THURSDAY MORNING; and I am listening to a BBC Radio Scotland debate on the Scottish Government’s proposals for the forthcoming independence referendum, announced with a fine flourish on Wednesday afternoon, at a press conference in the Great Hall of Edinburgh Castle. The tone of the four assembled radio spokespeople – for the four main Scottish parties, with Patrick Harvie of the Greens apparently lost in transit – varies a good deal. Stewart Maxwell for the SNP sounds confident and cheerful, and Annabel Goldie of the Tories seems relieved to have given up the burden of leadership; but the Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie is his usual dour and downbeat self, and Anas Sarwar, for Labour, sounds about as cheerful as a professional mourner at an old-fashioned funeral.

And whatever their tone, it becomes increasingly clear – as the programme wears on – that the three speakers for the Unionist parties currently have only one message for Scottish voters; that if we listen to the siren song of Alex Salmond and his nationalists, then dire consequences will follow. In the course of the programme, we are told that independence would be too risky, too expensive, and much, much too complicated to negotiate; that complete independence in the modern world is impossible in any case; that the whole process would create too much uncertainty; and that we are, in general, just not quite up to it.

Now for all that any of us knows, some of these predictions could turn out to be true; one of the most comical features of the Great Independence Debate so far is the sound of sceptical voters demanding “facts” about how an independent Scotland would turn out, as if Alex Salmond had a hotline to Mystic Meg. What’s almost certain, though, is that if the Unionist parties carry on with this relentless litany of negatives, the vast majority of voters will simply stop listening to them, long before the two-and-a-half year referendum campaign is over. And even if their campaign of fear and negativity is successful in achieving the “no” vote they crave, it will leave Scotland – the day after the referendum – with no prospect of a better future, and no idea at all of how it should move forward.

If the independence debate is to remain alive, therefore, and is not to become a huge turn-off for the vast majority of voters, it’s now absolutely essential that unionist politicians start developing their own positive vision for Scotland’s future in the UK; and start advocating it, and fighting for its inclusion in the coming referendum, as if they cared more for that positive vision than for the momentary pleasure of inflicting a possible yes/no humiliation on Alex Salmond. Nationalists will argue, of course, that there is no longer any such thing as a progressive Unionist position; and some in both the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties seem determined to prove them right, insisting that the Scots simply spend the next two years choosing between outright independence, and the UK as it stands.

The last time anyone checked, though, all three of the Unionist parties were in fact strong supporters of full fiscal autonomy for the Scottish Government, and of various forms of “devo max”. Among the disingenuous arguments now being advanced for denying Scottish voters a third choice in the coming referendum is the assertion that these other options are “confusing”, and that no-one knows what they mean. In fact, though, every Scottish politician knows that “devo max” means a system in which Scotland raises all its own taxes, and pays a subvention to London for those areas of spending – defence, pensions, some aspects of social security – which remain undevolved. There is also a well-worked out proposal for “devo plus”, put forward by Reform Scotland, under which Scots – like citizens of American states – would pay some of their taxes to Holyrood, and the rest to the central government at Westminster.

In addition, there is the traditional Liberal Democrat proposal for a fully federal UK, which could help meet what seems to be an increasing demand for some kind of English parliament, to match the elected legislatures in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. And the notion that all or any of these ideas should be kept off the table for the next three years, while we focus exclusively on debating complete independence, seems at best ridiculous, and at worst downright undemocratic; particularly when, as some shrewd observers have noted, the kind of “independence lite” now being proposed by Alex Salmond – with retention of the monarchy, the pound sterling, and close military co-operation – is not nearly so different from devo max as some nationalists would have us believe.

The problem with Britain’s Unionist parties, though, is that over the last dozen years they have gradually become so unused to developing and advocating genuinely progressive policies that they now seem almost incapable of responding in kind to Alex Salmond’s hopeful vision of an independent Scotland. In the 1990’s, the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties formed a powerful alliance with Scottish civil society to campaign for what was seen, at the time, as a huge and radical constitutional change in the British state; today, the Liberal Democrats are silenced by their Westminster coalition with the Conservatives, while Labour literally no longer knows where it stands, in the battle for democracy between ordinary citizens and overweening financial power.

These parties can, in other words – if they wish – maintain their flawed and petty decision of recent weeks to deny the Scottish people a full constitutional debate on all the options; and to insist that we simply choose between Alex Salmond’s Scotland, and David Cameron’s Union. If they do, though, it will be the worse for us, and the worse for them. And once the dust of the referendum vote has settled, whether the answer is yes or no, voters will turn away from them in boredom and disgust; and back towards the party which – whatever its flaws – at least dared to dream of a better future Scotland, and to sketch out a road map of how we might get to that future, from where we are now.

ENDS ENDS

The Infamous Brothers Davenport, White, The Builders

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JOYCE MCMILLAN on THE INFAMOUS BROTHERS DAVENPORT at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, WHITE at theBrunton Theatre, Musselburgh, and THE BUILDERS at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, for The Scotsman Arts Magazine, 26.1.12
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The Infamous Brothers Davenport 3 stars ***
White 4 stars ****
The Builders 3 stars ***

IT’S AMBITIOUS, IT’S SPECTACULAR, it’s incredibly rich in theatrical texture, and it tussles mightily with some of the great themes of human civilisation; yet it’s sometimes just a little bit dull. This is the towering paradox of The Infamous Brothers Davenport, the first major Scottish theatre show of 2012, co-produced by the Royal Lyceum Theatre and the ingenious young touring company Vox Motus, based on the true story of two late-19th century spiritualist entertainers, and written by Peter Arnott, possibly the most clever and thought-provoking of all Scotland’s playwrights. And it’s a paradox that persists through a long but fascinating two-and-a-half hours in the Lyceum’s picturesque Victorian auditorium, which forms a near-perfect setting for a play that is part disturbing family drama, and part site-specific evocation of the kind of magic and spiritualist shows that were so popular around the turn of the 20th century.

As the show begins, the audience is invited – by a cast in elaborate period costume – to wander up onto the stage, and to examine the big panelled-wood cabinet that is the centrepiece of the set. Some audience members are even dressed up in waistcoats and long skirts – in the style of the recent Salon experience at the Traverse – and asked to sit on stage, tying a set of knots here, taking part in a seance there.

Gavin Mitchell, as manager and compere Mr. Fay, introduces both our patroness for the evening – an intense Edinburgh lady seeking news of her lost explorer husband – and the stars of the show, the strange little Davenport brothers, Willie and Ira, fresh from the United States. Tricks and wonders ensue, none of them very convincing. And meanwhile, the story rumbles into action; a double narrative of our lady host’s desperate quest for scientific proof that communication with the dead is possible, and of Willie and Ira’s terrible family history, dominated by a bullying and violent father who sexually abused their beloved older sister Katie to the point of probable suicide.

Now there is no overstating the force of some of the images generated by this haunting story, as the Davenports’ strange cabinet folds and unfolds, revealing and concealing. There are blazing city skylines, mighty winds, huddled crowds of spectators silhouetted in fairground booths, and the steady presence of the luminous ghost of Katie. The show also features some terrific performances, notably from a mighty Gavin Mitchell as both father and impresario, and from real-life brothers Ryan and Scott Fletcher as the Davenports; and it ends on a powerful note of uncertainty, poised between rigorous exposure of spiritualist chicanery, and a sense that – as Papa Davenport says – our minds can indeed make worlds, and change realities.

Throughout most of the play, though, there’s something stodgy and repetitive about the narrative; about the repeated arguments over whether Katie’s spirit is “real” or just a split-off part of young Willie’s troubled mind, and over Lady Noyes-Woodhull’s desperate quest for scientific respectability and certainty, in a field full of blind faith or outrageous charlatanism. And for all the vividness of the visual imagery, the endless changing of scenes and shifting of equipment often seems to inhibit the action; as if something had slipped slightly out of joint in the relationship between the physical and dramatic elements of the show, and never quite been healed.

All of which provides a powerful contrast with the seamless and perfectly-achieved simplicity of Catherine Wheels’s great international hit White, a multiple award-winning show for 2-4 year olds first seen in 2010, and now revived with a new cast for a worldwide tour. When the actress Sarah Jessica Parker saw this show in New York, she described it as “the best forty minutes of my life”; and while that seems a bit of an overstatement, there is something uniquely compelling about this tale of two little white people who live in a completely white world, nurturing perfect white eggs in a series of little white nesting-box houses, until one day an egg arrives which is the wrong colour – a bright, blazing red. Every physical and aural detail of Gill Robertson’s production expresses the rhythm of Andy Manley’s simple story to perfection; the new performing partnership of Ian Cameron and Tim Licata works well. And it’s a pure joy to see the continuing power of this show to thrill and enchant audiences of nursery-age children, who enter immediately into its snowy little world, anticipating and relishing every move.

At the Traverse, meanwhile, Tim Licata’s other company Plutot La Vie brought some relief to drama-starved January audiences, last weekend, with two hugely entertaining rehearsed readings of The Builders, by Danish playwright Line Knutzon. Set during the great property boom that ended with such a resounding crash in 2008, Knutzon’s black comedy seems to me more of a good one-line joke than a world-class drama. Once we’ve grasped that yuppie couple Alice and John have been driven completely nuts – to the point of multiple murder – by the effort to convert an old house into their dream home with the help of a terminally incompetent and dishonest team of builders, there’s not much more to say; and the play seems over-extended at almost two hours.

There’s no doubt, though, that Tim Licata assembled an astonishing cast for these two readings, co-sponsored by the Year Of Creative Scotland. With Victoria Balnaves in terrific form as the decor-obsessed Alice, Robbie Jack as the chief builder, and Gerry Mulgrew and Gerda Stevenson offering a star turn as neighbours George and Maggie, the evening rolled along to a rousing comic conclusion; and also offered Edinburgh audiences a chance to see a slice of their own recent domestic history, pushed just beyond the limits of the absurd.

The Infamous Brothers Davenport at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, 20 January-11 February, Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow, 14-18 February, and Eden Court Theatre, Inverness, 22-25 February. White at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, 11-14 April, and on tour.

PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK

He’s best known for his appearances in the television comedy Still Game. Yet Gavin Mitchell one of the most powerful actors on the Scottish stage, capable of evoking the heavy patriarch with terrific force; and in The Infamous Brothers Davenport, he delivers a memorable double-act, as both the flashy manager and compere Mr. Fay, and the Davenports’ terrifyingly abusive Papa, foul-mouthed, violent, yet somehow strangely charismatic.

ENDS ENDS

Getting On With It – Scotman Blog On Pathways To The Profession Arts And Disability Conference, Dundee, 23.1.12

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JOYCE MCMILLAN on JUST DOING IT – EMPLOYING ACTORS WITH DISABILITIES for Scotsman Arts Blog, 23.1.12
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IN DUNDEE, at the end of last week, around 200 people from across the UK gathered to debate the position of artists with disabilities in theatre, dance and performance. The sponsoring organisations included Creative Scotland, Dundee Rep Theatre, Dundee City Council and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and the theme was “Pathways To The Profession”.

Unusually, though, what happened at the conference was not a listing of problems, followed by a painstaking effort to propose some possible solutions. Instead, the event was more like a terrific, upbeat, life-affirming celebration of what artists with disability have been able to achieve, combined with a demand that the people in charge of large arts organisations get themselves up to speed on the subject, and start to recognise what’s going on. The centrepiece event of the two-day conference was a performance on Thursday evening at Dundee Rep, featuring acts ranging from Scottish dancer Claire Cunningham’s acclaimed short piece Evolution, to an astonishing solo piece about a deaf torch-song signer (not singer) staged by leading mixed-ability company Graeae.

And the sheer quality of the work on view – searching, humane, passionate, beautiful, often very funny – seemed to mark a kind of tipping-point, a moment when the debate about embracing artists with disabilities in “mainstream” performance moves from a “how” phase – or even a “why should we” phase – to one where the only remaining questions are “why not?”, and “why not today?” The fact is that there is now, in Scotland – and across the UK – a core group of performers with disabilities who are so talented, and so charismatic on stage, than any director with any ambition would want to work with them; and their creative response to whatever sensory of movement limitations they experience tends to enhance the quality and depth of any performance in which they are involved, rather than diminishing it.

So far as theatre is concerned, of course, the main problem lies in the presumption of naturalism, or what you might call “the mimetic fallacy”; that is, that if the script doesn’t say a character is black, or disabled, or whatever, then the actor can’t be, either. As the playwright David Greig pointed out in Dundee, though, naturalism in theatre is always imperfect, and the attempt to achieve it increasingly irrelevant, in terms of theatre’s role in a culture dominated by screen drama. Greig suggests that we should be thinking in terms of creating ensembles of actors which reflect the community around them, including people with disabilities; others point out how quickly disabilities become invisible, or simply taken for granted, when people get to know performers with disabilities, and recognise the other qualities they bring to the work.

So the question is whether we have now reached a point where some director of a mainstream theatre, somewhere, can simply take the bold step forward, and cast an actor with a disability in a major role that doesn’t require any such thing. Because one of the most striking things about the Dundee conference was the extent to which it called into question the mantra that “it takes time”, and that it might be “some years” before people are ready – for example – to accept a Hamlet in a wheelchair.

On the contrary, the experience of performers with disability in the UK now seems to be that a change – in audience attitudes, in organisational capacity, even in physical facilities – can take place almost overnight, once someone in a position of power simply decides to go ahead, and throw the whole weight of his or her artistic judgment and enthusiasm behind the decision.

As always in the arts, of course, the key is in the quality of the work; if the artists are brilliant, then their precise range of abilities becomes secondary to the primal act of communication. And the best story told at Dundee was the one about the artistic director who was dragged along unwillingly to a casting showcase for performers with disabilities, grumbling that he could never employ one. “You bastard!” he said to the organiser afterwards. “I never wanted even one disabled actor. But they were so bloody good that now I’ve got two of them! And now we’re going to have to make it work…..”

ENDS ENDS

Titanic Task: What New Scottish Labour Leader Johann Lamont Must Do, If She Wants To Rebuild Her Party’s Relationship With The Scottish People – Column 20.1.12

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JOYCE MCMILLAN for The Scotsman, 20.1.12
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IT’S BEEN A fierce couple of weeks in Scottish politics. Yet behind all the sound and fury of the referendum debate – the grandstanding at Holyrood, the ill-informed bombast at Westminster – there has been another quiet drama unfolding in English politics; and it involves a sudden snapping of patience with Ed Miliband, and his leadership of the Labour Party, among some key groups on the English left. On Tuesday, Westminster’s only Green MP, Caroline Lucas, was even moved to issue a statement inviting the unions to break with Labour at last, and to switch their support to the Greens, who clearly share more of their priorities.

And while relations between Labour and the unions have not yet deteriorated quite that far, there was genuine fury among union leaders this week, particularly over Ed Miliband’s unilateral decision to announce that a future Labour government would not reverse Tory cuts in public-sector pay and pensions, and over some spectacularly right-wing ideas on benefits “reform”, floated last week. The coverage of these initiatives in the London media has, perhaps unsurprisingly, involved a near-universal chorus of establishment approval for Ed Miliband’s wisdom in “standing up” to the unions, and beginning to restore his party’s economic “credibility”.

What is not yet apparently understood inside the Westminster bubble, though, is the extent to which this kind of elite consensus – on the need to keep driving down the pay of ordinary workers, slashing their pensions and benefits, and cutting the services on which they depend – is itself becoming politically toxic across large parts of Britain; and driving millions, including the growing army of young unemployed, into a profound disillusion with, and detachment from, the whole political process.

And if Ed Miliband’s decision to make these gestures to the right raises serious problems for the centre-left across the UK, then they place Scottish Labour’s new leader, Johann Lamont, in an almost impossible position. Already facing a collapse in Labour votes and membership caused by the party’s movement to the Blairite right since the 1990’s, and facing a triumphant Scottish National Party which has – for better or worse – now become the focus of all hope for many centre-left Scottish voters, the new Labour leader now has to deal, in addition, with her party leader’s decision to join the Prime Minister’s gang on the constitutional issue, agreeing that Scotland should be made to hold a “binding” yes-no referendum on independence, and rolling out Westminster Labour “big guns” to lead a government-inspired campaign designed to frighten the Scots into voting “no”.

Now tactically, of course, it is tempting for Labour to join the Tories in wrong-footing Alex Salmond, by demanding the straight yes-no referendum which he fears he cannot win. The First Minister has clearly been taken aback by the extent of his own success in demoralising the opposition parties in Scotland, which has left him without significant support in promoting the “devolution max” option which he also wants to see on the ballot paper; and Labour is doing all it can to prolong his pain.

This is the kind of moment, though, when serious political leaders have to take a step backward from the fray, and the consider the long-term future of the movement which they seek to represent; and it’s this kind of courage and statesmanship that is now required of Johann Lamont. The party she leads was founded on trade union representation, on the co-operative consumer movement, and on a passionate belief in Scottish home rule, as part of what we would now call a federal UK; and although times have changed, the Labour Party has little reason to exist unless it can continue, under 21st century conditions, to speak up for those values.

And this means that Johann Lamont – a strong, thoughtful and well-grounded politician, consistently underrated by many commentators – now has to undertake two formidable political tasks, if she wants to rebuild her party’s relationship with the Scottish people. In the first place, she must become – and persuade Ed Miliband to let her become – the leading advocate for the kind of devolution-plus policy that her party officially supports, and for its proper inclusion on the ballot paper in any forthcoming referendum. In doing this, she will certainly be giving short-term succour to Alex Salmond. She will also, though, be working to give the Scottish people what they actually want and need, which is a chance to win ever-greater control over their own affairs through a gradual, dynamic process which enjoys a high level of general consent; rather than through a divisive and damaging yes-or-no battle over independence which will in fact settle nothing, beyond the shortest of short terms.

Then secondly, having won the trust of voters on this issue, she must begin to reconstruct a real politics of popular representation in Scotland, taking advantage of the rich links of solidarity – and the strong flow of information and ideas – that still bind many people in the Labour and co-operative movement to their colleagues across the UK. To be credible in doing this, Ms Lamont will have to distance herself decisively from her London leadership’s compulsive and increasingly outdated kow-towing to the attitudes and policies of London’s right-wing economic elites; if she succeeds in beginning to develop a viable new social-democratic movement for the 21st century, she may even find that the party’s hapless UK leadership begins to follow her lead, since they seem to have few better ideas themselves.

Even if they do not, though, she will still do better to start rebuilding a distinctive future for the Labour movement in Scotland, than to compromise much further with the kind of policies that have already destroyed the party’s dominant position here. For if it is not decisively challenged now, that tired old rhetoric of Labour right-wingery into which Ed Miliband seemed to be sliding this week could rapidly consign the Labour Party in Scotland to oblivion; leaving us without a vital voice of opposition to an increasingly dominant SNP, without a steady reminder that in the great scheme of things, social justice and decency finally matter more than national identity, and without the kind of serious choice, come election day, that is the stuff of democracy, and the best guarantee of our freedom.

ENDS ENDS

Grease

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JOYCE MCMILLAN on GREASE at the King’s Theatre, Glasgow, for The Scotsman 20.1.12
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3 stars ***

WHAT DO YOU WANT, on a cold night in January?  A touch of sunshine, plenty of sugar-pink decor, some top-class body-popping, and a blast of teenage American High School culture, set at the moment when that phenomenon first burst on an unsuspecting world?  Then this Paul Nicholas/David Ian UK touring production of Grease is the show for you, as it arrives in Glasgow for a brief two-week run, before moving on to Aberdeen.

It’s not that this stage version of the story can ever quite match the special energy of the 1978 film, starring John Travolta as leather-jacketed 1950’s “greaser” Danny, and Olivia Newton John as his good-girl true love, Sandy.  The singing is a little too polite, the cast don’t look like teenagers, and the whole show lacks a certain edge of falsetto desperation, as Danny Bayne’s elegant Danny moves suavely round the stage, looking like Travolta, but moving more like a Strictly Come Dancing professional.

Everything else about the show delivers full value, though, as a cast of 25 – plus X Factor star Mary Byrne, in a guest appearance as a cuddly guardian angel – whip their way through some razor-sharp choreography, inspired by a mixture of 1950’s jive and late-Seventies disco.  The story is feeble, full of suppressed  hints – particularly in the brief panic over bad girl Rizzo’s possible pregnancy – of what could have been a harder-hitting 1950’s story.

The original songs are superb, though, from Summer Nights through to the iconic You’re The One That I Want.  Carina Gillespie, as Sandy, makes a convincingly sweet and shy leading lady.  And above the stage, dressed in sharp pink jackets for the high-school hop, musical director Barney Ashworth and his six-strong band give it best, in a fine rock-and-roll performance that binds this candy-coloured show together, from start to finish.

ENDS ENDS         

 

One Day In Spring – Play, Pie And Pint Spring Season, 2012

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JOYCE MCMILLAN on ONE DAY IN SPRING, AND THE NEW PLAY, PIE AND PINT SEASON for Scotsman Arts Magazine, 19 January 2012
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IN A SYRIAN CITY riven by protest and violence, a young woman film-maker tries to persuade people to give their testimony, direct to the camera. In an empty theatre in Beirut, two men hide from the latest border conflict between Israel and Lebanon. And in Morocco, an everyman type called Hassan finds himself accidentally present at all the major recent events of his country’s history; but is it him, or his female soulmate and other self, Hada?

And no, these are not out-takes from recent news stories, or reflections from From Our Own Correspondent; they are, instead, the semi-fictional situations that drive three of the six brand-new plays from across the Middle East that will be staged at Oran Mor in Glasgow and the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, as part of a packed 19-show season of lunchtime Play, Pie and Pint productions, which also includes a special celebration of the 250th play presented in the lunchtime series since it began, seven and a half years ago.

Founded, produced and masterminded by Wildcat veteran David MacLennan, A Play, A Pie And A Pint has become one of the essential features of the Scottish theatre landscape since its first autumn season in 2004; but this Spring, there’s a special mood of excitement, as it looks outward towards the countries shaken and stirred by the momentous Arab Spring events that began to sweep through Tunisia and Egypt, a year ago this month.

“It was around this time last year,” says leading Scottish playwright David Greig, who is curating the One Day In Spring season for A Play, A Pie And A Pint. “The National Theatre of Scotland was working with David MacLennan on a six-show series of plays from Latin America; and David and I just thought, when we were talking one day, that we had to do this same thing with young writers from the Middle East and North Africa, as soon as we could. The NTS were really up for it,; and the British Council came on board too, helping the writers to be in Scotland during the season.

“I had been working with young writers from the region for years, particularly in Syria and Egypt, and so I already had a lot of contacts there. David MacLennan’s only condition was that we look for brand new work; so we started asking them to send us their latest stuff, that would possibly fit the 50-minute lunchtime format.

“Because they were mainly students when I first met them, most of the writers I know across the Middle East and North Africa are in their twenties. But that feels right, because they are the huge, bulging generation, across the whole region, who really feel the fierce frustration of a system that seems to shut them out; and who are usually in the front line of the protests. I think they do speak for their own societies, in a vital way; and I also think they speak for a whole generation, across the planet, who seem to have been robbed of their future through no fault of their own.”

Greig is quick to point out, though, that there’s even more to the One Day In Spring than four 50-minute plays by young writers. He and MacLennan are also putting together two compilation pieces, one in the form of a series of letters to Glasgow from older writers in the region, and the other – the title show One Day In Spring – featuring a series of 24 two-minute plays from writers right cross the region, one for each hour of a long spring day. There will also be debates with food from the countries involved, and the chance of seeing two existing shows from the region, which may be brought to the Tron Theatre in May, with the support of the NTS.

“There are no guarantees about any of this,” says Greig. “The work is genuinely new, and quite rough. As a whole, though, I really hope the season will work. It’s like a counterpoint to the idea of 24 hour rolling news, which gives you constant coverage of these events, but very much from the outside, looking in; this gives you a view from the inside, looking out. And suddenly – at last – there seems to be this huge hunger from audiences in the west to hear those voices, and to understand what’s going on, across these societies.”

It’s a tribute to the huge vitality of the Play, Pie And Pint phenomenon, though, that the One Day In Spring season represents less than one-third of the work in a Spring programme that also includes new plays by Jo Clifford, Peter Arnott, Alan Wilkins, and Peter MacDougall, and a first-ever Oran Mor play by Mel Giedroyc of Mel And Sue.

“Am I surprised to be staging our 250th show?” laughs MacLennan, who plans to mark the occasion by launching a celebratory fund for new writers, backed by an initial £10,000 of profits from this year’s hugely successful Oran Mor panto. “I’m not surprised, I’m staggered. If you had told me back in 2004 that we would be playing to 150 people every day, in a pub in the West End of Glasgow, I would have said you were mad

“Yet that’s about the level we’ve reached, now; and the box-office income it brings gives me a degree of freedom which is great. And the other thing that has slowly developed, and is a great joy to me, is this growing willingness of the audience to go anywhere. There are things I do now that I would never have dreamed of doing back in that first season. Because what I’ve learned is that once you build up this strong connection with an audience, everything becomes possible. Their appetite for new experiences is astonishing; and it means we can do so much more than I ever imagined, seven years ago.”

The Play Pie And Pint season opens at Oran Mor on 30 January, with Jo Clifford’s Sex, Chips And The Holy Ghost. The One Day In Spring season opens at Oran Mor on 16 April, and at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, on 24 April; and runs until 2 June.

ENDS ENDS

Moving In Houses

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JOYCE MCMILLAN on MOVING IN HOUSES at the Tramway, Glasgow, for The Scotsman 16.1.12
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3 stars ***

AMONG all the many things we take for granted, the precise relationship between our physical bodies, and the domestic spaces we inhabit, is probably one of the least examined. And it’s into this shadowy but magical area – just below the horizon of awareness – that co-creators and directors Rachel Clive and Kirsty Stansfield lead us, in their new installation and performance piece at the Tramway. The T5 gallery space becomes home to four wooden structures by architect Ewan Imrie, each one like the raw wood frame of a small room; and the air is filled with a soundscape, by Mark Vernon, that captures a powerful range of domestic noise, from footsteps and passing traffic to slamming doors.

In the installation, each house is inhabited by a screen showing a leg, an arm, a face, filmed in the same space; watching it, leaning on it, lying in it, gazing up at it. In the performance, seven figures appear, performers from the Tramway’s community-based Theatre Arts Group, along with Martin Sloss from Indepen-dance; and for 55 minutes they shift the spaces around into different formations, and move through them alone or together, resting, hugging, dancing and exercising in solitary contemplation, merging into a community, dissolving again.

In the end, the installation perhaps works slightly better than the performance in opening up the theme; it leaves more space for the imagination, where the movement and music sometimes seems over-explicit. Alexander Ridgers’s lighting is beautiful though, piercing in sharp waves of colour through the struts and shadows of the rooms. And there’s an impressive energy and focus in the performance of a company many of whose members have learning or physical difficulties; along with an implicit plea for the connectedness that human beings clearly need, but which is so often denied by the very structure of buildings where the walls are solid, and not, as here, opened up by the light of a fresh awareness.

ENDS ENDS

New Times At The Traverse – Interview With Orla O’Loughlin

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JOYCE MCMILLAN on ORLA O’LOUGHLIN AT THE TRAVERSE for Scotsman Arts Magazine, 12.1.12
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WHEN ORLA O’LOUGHLIN was a little girl, back in the late 1970’s, summers had just one pattern to them. As soon as school was over, the whole family – Mum, Dad, two daughters – would pack themselves into their little 2CV, drive from their home in Ealing to the ferry, and head for a long holiday in County Clare, the place both parents had left in the 1960’s, to make successful lives for themselves in London.

In Clare, there ws a huge extended family, and, as Orla O’Loughlin remembers it, “lots of parties and singing and stories, and everyone had to have their own song or story, you know? There was this sense of something very enriched going on, a feeling of people for whom their culture, and the expression of it, was absolutely central to their lives. And I think that had a huge impact on me, growing up; apart from anything else, it was such a vivid contrast to west London where we lived, and which I also loved.”

As it turned out, that impulse towards performance and cultural expression was to be the shaping force in O’Loughlin’s life; the one that led to her appointment, late last year, as the twelfth artistic director in the 50-year history of the Traverse Theatre, and only the second woman ever to hold the job. Small, dark-haired, and full of energy in her late thirties, O’Loughlin arrived at the Traverse earlier this week; and began fielding a formidable schedule of meetings, interviews and getting-to-know-you sessions, although it’s already a month since she moved into her new Edinburgh flat, along with her husband – a BBC producer – and their 18-month-old daughter.

“I am just so proud to be the second woman to hold this job,” says O’Loughlin, who has emerged as Traverse director after a twelve-year directing career that has taken her both to the star-studded heights of London theatre – where she worked as an assistant to directors like Sam Mendes and Katie Mitchell, and with stars ranging from Gwyneth Paltrow to David Tennant – and to a five-year period running the Pentabus Theatre Company in Ludlow, which many of her London friends saw as a time of exile, but which she felt was a creative necessity.

After a convent education in London during which she trained as a singer, O’Loughlin studied theatre and performance at Warwick University, began to create and perform a range of devised work, and sang in a band – “Ah well, at that point I thought I was P.J. Harvey,” she laughs. After university, she trained as a teacher, and taught drama at a boys’ grammar school in London; and it was through her directing work with the boys that she came to recognise her vocation. So in 1999, she sold up her flat and car, and went to the Central School of Speech and Drama to study for a one-year master’s degree in directing.

“It was just the most amazing moment,” says O’Loughlin. “I was 26, I really wanted it, I knew why I was doing it; and that course led to this amazing period in my life, when I had all these wonderful job opportunities at the Donmar and the National, and in the West End. I also spent some time as an International Associate at the Royal Court, working with new writers mainly in Eastern Europe; and I began to realise that I loved working with writers, more than anything.

“By the mid-2000’s, though, I just began to feel that my work was out of balance; I was aware that I had less and less space for projects of my own. So I decided to leave London, and take the job in Ludlow. Pentabus is a new writing company, and my whole aim there was to create the conditions in which writers can produce extraordinary new work for theatre; and I felt I had to get out of London to be able to do that – it’s something to do with being outside that London bubble, and getting a clearer sense of perspective. When you’re in theatre in a huge city like London, it’s easy to feel that you don’t ever need to go anywhere else. But I’ve always been very wary of that feeling.

“So when I heard that the Traverse job was coming up, I knew that I was ready for it; I wanted a theatre to run, a building to work from. My heart and soul is in new writing, and I want to create the conditions in which writers at the Traverse can thrive, and take on new challenges. And I want to nurture that independent voice that I find in this city and this country. There’s a sense of purpose about Scottish playwriting which I like, a sense of something to say or be said, a front-footed approach to addressing the audience; and there is opinion.

“After all, Edinburgh is historically a place of great thinkers and orators, philosophically and socially, and this whole country is on the brink of what may be an enormous change. So I want to create or re-create the sense of a gang of Traverse writers – across the generations, including plenty of new voices – who can really feel that this is their creative home, a place where they can test and develop their ideas about Scotland and the world, and engage in debate with other artists, and with the audience.

“So do I feel an affinity with Scottish culture, at this turning-point? I feel that I do, although I wouldn’t want to get too cliched or stereotypical about what that might mean. For myself, I maintain my absolute right to have a dual national identity, both Irish and English; and for the rest, I’m entering into the job in a spirit of openness, knowing that i’m an outsider to this nation and community in Scotland, with a lot to learn and discover. Yet there is something here that I feel close to, and it’s to do with that deep feeling of taking a pride in your cultural life, and putting it at the centre of things. I sense that here; I recognise it, and I love it.”

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Race, Citizenship and Belonging: Lessons From The Stephen Lawrence Case For Scotland’s Constitutional Process – Column 6.1.12

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JOYCE MCMILLAN for The Scotsman, 6.1.12
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IT HAS NOT, let’s face it, been a good week for Diane Abbott, the outspoken Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. On Wednesday, she sent a tweet to her many thousands of followers, suggesting that “White people love to play divide and rule, and we should not play their game”; and within hours, she was under siege, following an angry phone call from Labour leader Ed Milliband – who apparently ordered her to apologise – and calls for her resignation from Nadhim Zahawi, the new Tory MP for Stratford-upon-Avon.

There’s no doubt, on balance, that Abbott was right to apologise, and to delete the offending message. All the same, the exaggerated outcry caused by her message, and the blatant attempt by some to equate her remark with the attitudes of white racists, reveals a persistent and worrying lack of perspective on racial issues in Britain, and of basic empathy with the realities of black experience. This week’s momentous events in London, with the final conviction of Gary Dobson and David Norris for the murder of black student Stephen Lawrence after a 19-year struggle for justice, were accompanied by a disturbing tone of self-congratulation from some establishment figures in London; many argued that the Metropolitan Police have undergone a “complete transformation”, since that evening in April 1993 when they simply did not trouble themselves to gather vital evidence in what they saw as just another knifing of a young black guy.

Yet as Doreen Lawrence pointed out in her statement following the verdict, those who deal from day to day with the reality of race relations in Britain have a different tale to tell; of persisting problems with even-handed policing, of frequent racial attacks, and of a continuing absence of black and Asian people from top jobs and decision-making bodies. In reporting on this week’s verdict in the Lawrence case, one BBC correspondent offered the view that Britiain was now a country “far more at ease” with its racial diversity than it was in 1993. Yet simply for inventing the useful term “institutional racism”, to describe the unexamined assumptions of the Metropolitan Police at the time of the Lawrence murder, the distinguished judge Sir William Macpherson, who chaired the Stephen Lawrence inquiry in the late 1990’s, was subjected to astonishing levels of vilification. And a survey published in 2010 by the Equality and Human Rights Commission showed that even here, in what we like to think of as kindly, tolerant Scotland, slightly more people believe that efforts to improve opportunities for members of ethnic minorities have “gone too far”, than believe they have not gone far enough.

It’s therefore worth pausing, as Scotland proceeds towards its independence referendum, to consider just how far this nation really lives up to its self-image as a tolerant and inclusive modern society. It’s clear that Scotland starts with some advantages, when it comes to racial and ethnic inclusion. Our ethnic minorities are relatively small in numbers, and their presence has not caused the kind of culture-shock that shook many English cities in the 1960’s and 70’s. Scotland’s heightened awareness of its own minority identity in the UK means that Scots tend to embrace anyone, of any ethnic origin, who sounds like a Scot, and seems to know and care a bit about Scottish history and culture; and the Scottish Government has a strong and explicit policy of cultural inclusion, often eloquently articulated by leading politicians, including the present First Minister.

Yet it’s in the nature of processes of constitutional change that they often provoke unexpected cultural reactions; and it is striking how often, in the discussion about Scottish independence, old ideas about an ethnic and blood-based definition of Scottishness tend to recur, and to find an echo in Scottish communities where the number of racially motivated attacks has tended to increase in recent years. Many Scots still routinely ask their black or Asian compatriots where they come from, as if they could not possibly be from Scotland. People complain, bizarrely, that third-generation Scots living in North America will have no vote in the independence referendum. Scots living in England express outrage at their exclusion from the process, as if their decision to move south, and to become Londoners or Mancunians, should have no civic consequences at all. And at the back of the nationalist project, there sometimes lurks that thoroughly questionable idea of “Homecoming”; the notion that once Scottish nationhood is reinstated, the Scottish diaspora will somehow return, bringing back with them all those superior Scottish genes that caused them to get up and go in the first place.

Now it should go without saying that this kind of genetic fantasy has no place in the politics of a progressive modern nation. At best, it is backward-looking and unhelpful; at worst, it seriously destabilises the notion of Scotland as a nation of citizens defined by their presence on Scottish soil and their commitment to Scotland, rather than by their race or birth. So this might be an opportune moment for the Scottish Government to restate its progressive position on this matter; to reaffirm that what they are prposing is a referendum of voters who live in Scotland, and to deliver a sharp and well-argued rebuke to ethnic romanticism in all its forms.

For I don’t know, when all is said and done, whether Neville and Doreen Lawrence would consider themselves English. I do know, though, that in their long and dignified battle to see that right is done, and the underdog defended, they embody more of the traditional “English” virtues than any of those thugs who murdered their son. And their story stands as a rebuke to all those who toy with the idea, in any form, that blood and genetic heritage matter more than kindness, commitment, or the rule of law. The Lawrences’ struggle has been gruelling, and it is not over. But they have shown – to use the words of Robert Burns – that in the end, sense and worth can sometimes triumph over the cruel and arbitrary politics of ethnicity. And for that reminder – sharp, timely and true – everyone in these islands owes them a debt of thanks.

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