SCOTTISH theatre continues to make an encouragingly strong recovery from the Covid pandemic. Indeed, the impressive quality of much of the work can mask the fact that our theatre community is beset by difficulties.
Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre (which is, arguably, the most important producing house in the country) remains closed, and is now well into the sixth year of a major redevelopment project that was supposed to take 24 months. This is, no doubt, a source of massive frustration for its artistic director, the hugely talented Dominic Hill. It is certainly an incalculable loss for Scottish theatre audiences.
Add to that the dangerous underfunding of much of the theatre sector, from the complete withdrawal of funding for the Tron Theatre by Glasgow City Council to Perth Theatre’s non-replacement of its artistic director.
It should be said, however, that the latter insists, contrary to a recent speculation of mine, that it will continue to be a thriving producing house under Chris Glasgow, who was appointed recently to the two-in-one job of director of both Perth Theatre and Perth Concert Hall.
As if these factors were not enough, Scottish theatre is currently in mourning for one of its leading dramatists, Oliver Emmanuel (author of Dragon and the 306 Trilogy, among other works), who has died at the age of just 43.
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One hesitates to comment on the excellent work that Scotland’s theatre-makers are able to create despite the desperate underfunding of the sector. Politicians need to understand that a theatre culture withers from the roots, and that, without proper support, the Scottish theatre infrastructure, which has been built up over decades, could collapse in a matter of years.
Having said all that, any consideration of the last 12 months in Scottish theatre indicates that, in spite of the many challenges faced by our live drama culture, our theatre-makers (from writers to directors, actors, designers and composers) have succeeded in staging some genuinely world class work. The absolute highlight of the 2023 Scottish theatre programme was, for me, Gary McNair’s Dear Billy for the National Theatre of Scotland (NTS).
This “love letter to the Big Yin from the people of Scotland” will, I’m delighted to say, be back in 2024. Although, ostensibly, a small show (performed by McNair himself, with the assistance of two musicians), it is a play of such grand ambition that one feared it couldn’t be pulled off.
How, one wondered, could one person on a stage manage to convey the sheer depth and breadth of the Scottish people’s affection and admiration for a man who has revolutionised stand-up comedy, not only here in Scotland, but throughout the English-speaking world?
It was an extremely tall order, but – thanks to an exquisitely put together script (created through interviews the dramatist conducted across the country) and an exceptional, heartfelt and hilarious performance – McNair succeeded abundantly.
Love Beyond (Act of Remembrance), by the astonishing Scots-Singaporean theatre-maker Ramesh Meyyappan, was another stunning success. In this co-production for Scottish theatre companies Raw Material and Vanishing Point, Meyyappan (who is Deaf), co-performers Elicia Daly and Amy Kennedy, and a team of excellent BSL (British Sign Language) interpreters told the story of Harry, an elderly Deaf man who, as a consequence of dementia, is losing his short-term memory and, therefore, his language (which is BSL).
As so often with people suffering from Dementia, Harry experiences a vivid flood of longer term memories (in his case, of the early days of his love affair with his beloved late wife). All of this is told by means of BSL, some spoken English (on the part of Harry’s anxious nurse) and a beautifully stylised visual and physical theatre that are the hallmarks of the work of both Meyyappan and director Matthew Lenton. The show is due to tour in the autumn of 2024.
Mental health is a subject, albeit in a very different context, in David Ireland’s extraordinary political comedy Cyprus Avenue. Staged by Andy Arnold (in what has turned out to be his last year as artistic director of Glasgow’s Tron Theatre), the production sees superb Scottish actor David Hayman tackle the role of staunch, working-class Ulster Unionist Eric Miller (originally played by the fine Belfast actor Stephen Rea in the drama’s 2016 premiere at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin).
In the play, the confusion and paranoia of his mental illness combine with the obsessions of his politics to convince Eric that his newborn granddaughter is, in fact, Gerry Adams (who was then president of Sinn Féin). Hayman’s performance in the brilliant, dark satire bagged him a Best Actor award at the 2023 Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland. The show will be revived at the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow from February 27 to March 2 of next year.
These were just a few of the outstanding productions in Scottish theatre in 2023. In truth, such is the talent and commitment within the theatre sector that we can boast an embarrassment of theatrical riches.
For instance, it has been an impressive year for Glasgow’s acclaimed lunchtime theatre A Play, a Pie and a Pint (whose artistic director Jemima Levick, it has just been announced, will soon vacate the Òran Mór to take the helm at the Tron Theatre).
Douglas Maxwell’s deeply thoughtful, powerfully complex comedy The Sheriff of Kalamaki (starring the excellent brothers Paul McCole and Stephen McCole) was a definite highlight of PPP in 2023.
Also impressing at PPP were Uma Nada-Rajah’s The Great Replacement and Pauline Lockhart and Alan Penman’s musical Forever Home. Other strong productions include: Macbeth (an undoing) at the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh; Henry IV and Lear’s Fool (both Bard in the Botanics, Glasgow); Nae Expectations (Tron); Lightning Ridge (Catherine Wheels); and Group Portrait in a Summer Landscape (Pitlochry Festival Theatre).
So, as I say, we need a political class that understands that, without a vibrant Scottish theatre sector, we wouldn’t get great actors like new Doctor Who Ncuti Gatwa. Nevertheless, our brilliant theatre practitioners continue to punch above their collective weight.
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