A Play, a Pie and a Pint
Oran Mor, Glasgow
25-30 September

Script:  Stagecraft:  Performance: 

Inside a Far East prison a young couple sit at a table awaiting the arrival of a lawyer. Incarcerated for the last 22 days, their prospects seem as dim as the flickering bulb that lights the dubious stains on the walls of the interview room. If Freya (Kim Allan) and Michael (Daniel Cameron) are to be saved from the most severe of punishments they must tell Amelia (Nicole Cooper), their legal representative, everything that happened before they caught the plane in Brisbane. Both have reasons to be economical with the truth but the fact is, somehow, someway, something illegal got into their luggage.

Allan’s Freya is convincing as a feisty, defiant teenager, impatiently demanding the legal system realises they are not foreign but British. Cameron’s Michael is timid, prone to despair, more likely than his travelling companion to turn to tears when the going gets tough. He wears shorts, she wears the trousers. Cooper’s Amelia is a calm presence carefully teasing out the truth, laying out the options, curtailing the more outlandish hopes of the accused – the UK is unlikely to revoke trade deals to ensure their release (well not with Brexit looming).

Writer Rob Drummond’s satisfying play moves to the Traverse in Edinburgh next week, where its serpentine plot will keep the audience guessing right till the end.

Reviewer : David G Moffat

A Play, A Pie and A Pint
Oran Mor, Glasgow
Sept 18-24

Script:  Stagecraft:  Performance: 

With sexual ambiguity and sharp dialogue, there are shades of Orton in this black comedy by Ian Cowell. Suburban couple Peter (George Drennan) and Grace (Anne Lacey) have been together for over 40 years and are at that intuitive plateau where words are not needed. If he taps his empty glass rapidly, the little lady knows it’s time to put down her knitting, fetch the malt and serve him another whisky. What could be more normal? Perhaps the longevity of their relationship is cemented by a hobby they share, even though it does tend to leave a bit of a mess in the darkness of the wine cellar and some digging to be done in the garden.

Once again they’re looking for a new tenant for the spare room and when a mysterious, handsome young man appears, keen to rent the space, the new lodger (Matthew Tomlinson) arouses the interest of Grace… and Peter. Drennan and Lacey are subtly convincing as the staid domestic couple about to have an additional layer of weirdness added to their already strange life by Tomlinson’s lively, double-dealing interloper. A mention should be given to Andy McGregor’s direction, which contrasts the early sedate sufficiency of the couple with the parlour game chaos of the trio at the end, a treat to watch throughout.

Reviewer : David G Moffat

Brunton Theatre

14th September 2017

Script:  Stagecraft:  Performance: 

During the madness that is the Edinburgh Fringe I saw that Matthew Zajac was performing in a new self-penned play, The Sky is Safe. After seeing Matthew in his extremely excellent ‘Tailor of Inverness’ of 2016 I didn’t want to dilute the experience, & so gladly opted to wait until it toured itself into the Brunton Theatre the other night. I was glad to wait, for I found the play to be a highly intellectual, explicitly detailed & ultimately satisfying slice of theatre. Of the play’s substance, in an earlier interview with the Mumble, Matthew told us;

In 2012 I was stranded in Istanbul for nine days while I waited for an Iranian visa which eventually was refused due to my UK nationality… I had a couple of interesting encounters on Istanbul’s streets and wrote about them. Last year I was pondering a new project for Dogstar and remembered the Istanbul experience. I learned that there were now around 350,000 Syrian refugees in the city and I decided to try to marry my earlier experience with that of Syrian women trying to make a life in the city. In March this year, I returned to Istanbul and, with the help of a local NGO, I had the great privilege of meeting and interviewing a number of Syrian women in their homes. A lot of what Amal, the female character in The Sky Is Safe comes from these interviews.

The central theme of the play is the relationship between Matthew’s Scottish gentleman, Gordon, & the female refugee, Amal, played with consummate confidence by Dana Hajaj. The story leaps from place to place through time locale, & at all times the chemistry between Gordon & Amal is quite pleasant to watch as they trip through the ordealistic travails of the Syrian refugee. Stagecraftwise, the music is excellen, all Turkish strings & twangs, while the set is smart enough – a soft-watching medley of warm squares of quasis-granite. I also found the explosive & light-flashing portrayal of a bombing scene stupendously atmospheric. The Sky is Safe is an hour long, Fringe-length of course, & the brevity is welcome in a play with just two actors. That doesn’t mean we only have two characters, however, while the brooding presence of  the interviewees is never afar away.  ‘My name is Marwa,’ we hear, ‘It means a smooth white rock. You need love to heal. My name is Jadwa. It means gift. We have men in power & the country is destroyed. My name is Raina… My name is Farida…’ etc, etc.

There are many strands to The Sky is Safe, whose well-researched material moulded into genuine entertainment by the slick Dogstar team. Theatre is about transporting the witness to another world, even when that world grates against our station in a fertile, wealthy island. There are real tragedies happening out there, real suffering, real & epic tragedies born of bureaucratic bullshit, all of which are conjoined by the spirit of hope; & although documentaries & news channels may be switched off or over, to get the same information from a trip to the theatre means one’s mind must become transplanted with the truth. In such a fashion The Sky is Safe is a welcome success, for the characters we are presented or more-than-real, the amplified essence of these desperate – for some – times.

Reviewer : Damo

Photos: Laurence Winram

It is still possible to catch The Sky is Safe on its tour of Scotland;

Sept 18-20 : Eden Court, Inverness
Sept 21 : Reay Village Hall
Sept 21 : PPP, Wick
Sept 23 : Durness Village Hall

Royal Lyceum
Edinburgh
September 7-23

Script:  Stagecraft:  Performance:

The topical transatlantic hot potato that is racial integration has just exploded like a White Supremacist nail-bomb onto the Lyceum stage. I’m always a little wary about picking open old social wounds in the name of entertainment, let sleeping rabid dogs lie kinda thing, but seeing as ignorance is in fact the bedrock of racism, encapsulating & regurgitating the essence of the tamer, slave-emancipating British variety through the educatory medium that is theatre is a prudent exercise. ‘We need to talk about England,’ the Lyceum’s artistic director, David Greig, told the Mumble, surfing the socialistic waves instigated by Brexit, for the England of 2017 is one in which the post-imperial diaspora has finally taken root. What Shadows explores what it means to be English, & in the play, the daughter of Caribbean immigrants, sable-skinned Rose Cruikshank, states quite proudly & progressively, ‘we all have multiple identities, but English is what we share.’ ‘But there are some of us more English than others,’ retorts a near-death Enoch Powell, who insisted on funneling his deep-set & quite inane old-school attitudes of race & Empire into the fermenting cauldron of modern Britain. It was 1968, & his ‘Rivers of Blood Speech’ – or the ‘Birmingham Speech’ as Powell called it himself rather whimsically – would plant ideas into the British psyche which would take decades to shake off. Not quite as incendiary as the 1861 Cornerstone Address by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens which ignited the American Civil War, but still a rather combustible collection of words which escalated into abhorrent social conflict that cup-of-tea-&-a-biscuit racism of English housewives. No longer would we hear, ‘that Sheila Donnelly’s shacked up with one of them coons, y’know!’ ‘Bloody nora, I wonder what colour the kid will be?’ Instead, ‘fuck off Pakis back to your own country,’ would become the bestial norm.

The stage before us is sparse but vivid; a wee copse of permanent Silver Birches transmorphing in eclectic variations of projected video-light.  The script we hear is intelligent, witty & informative; a fascinating triumph of integrity by Chris Hannon. I enjoyed his previous work for the Lyceum – in which he manage to shorten the Iliad & still make it resonate with Bronze Age beauty. With What Shadows we may observe Hannon’s growing sense of maturity, & also historicity, of which David Greig told The Mumble, ‘Chris Hannan uses his skill to shatter & examine some of the most urgent questions of the moment: Who are we? Where are we going? And who gets to decide?‘  The story is presented by a stellar cast, a cornucopian banquet of talent consisting of British-Asian stalwarts Waleed Akthar (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen) & Amneet Chana (what has he not been on?), Amelia Donkor, Nicholas Le Provost, Paula Wilcox  & Joanne Pearce. The richest picking on this silver platter is Ian McDiarmid, whose mountain-peaked experience was distilled into a rendition of Powell’s speech itself, with his genius steaming through every nuance of accent, emotion & snidey attack on the fledgling immigrant infrastructure of England. As an audience member born a decade after the speech, hearing McDiarmid in full flow offered a crystal clear memorial to that landmark occasion, allowing me to experience at quasi-first-hand that venomous piece of history which resonated bigotry & ignorance thoughout the land. No longer was England a place of churches, picnics & sunken lanes, but ghettos were developing in the inner cities out of which, according to Powell, legions of darkies would swarm to take over the island.

The speech came at the heart of the play – just before the interval. Before, & after, the action oscillated between the late 60s & 1992, telling Enoch’s personal story & the lingering after-effects of the speech – from Oxbridge to Wolverhampton via the barren shores of remote Scotland – while also sketching out a brief history of immigrant integration from its awkward early steps to the times when illiterate Pakistani villagers had given themselves a British education & got a decent job in a modern, accommodating & progressive society. The second half was a little drifty, lacking the dramatic tension that entailed the build-up to the speech… but the finale was excellent, a caustic conversazione between Rose Cruickshank & an elderly Enoch Powell, physically shaking with Parkinson’s Disease & spiritually shaking at the gall this young black woman had to question his inherent racist attitudes. As smart & witty as Virginia Wolfe at a literary soiree, she cut Powell to pieces during an existential debate which left me wondering what the next step of social integration is going to be. I guess, when someone asks us where we are from & who we are, we shall eventually reply only with a curt, ‘I am global.’

Reviewer : Damo

Play, Pie, Pint
Oran Mor (Glasgow)
Sept 11-16

Script:  Stagecraft:  Performance: 

Set in the present day and the early 17th century, Jane Livingstone’s play features an all female cast, an appropriate reversal of what was the Elizabethan norm, as we are about to learn (in gruesome but necessary detail) the fate of women thought to be witches.

Three Fifers, Isobel, Janet and Mags are recruited to do a bit of double, double, toil and trouble round the caldron in a film of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Not professional actors, they’ve been hired for their faces and to add a bit of colloquial authenticity. The director shouts action and we are transported back in time to the Bard’s London house where Will sits with Lilyan a Scottish seamstress who not only makes costumes for the company’s theatrical players but can read – a skill that arouses suspicion in Sir Grigor, a misogynistic royal emissary, visiting the playwright with a supernatural commission from King James.

The actors, Kirsten McLean (Isobel /Will), Sally Reid (Janet/Lilyan) and Clare Waugh (Mags/Sir Grigor) are comfortable in their dual roles, contrasting the dark drama of the past with the joking, cowl wearing, amateur performers in the film. (In a third guise they appear at a witch-trial in bunnets and football scarves. Weird but it works!)

Livingstone packs her intriguing play with facts and ideas which argue, with convincing authority, that the historical demonization of women through accusations of witchcraft had more to do with political repression than any fear of sorcery. A production that’s both entertaining and edifying.

Reviewer : David G Moffat

Hello Fiona, so where ya from & where ya at, geographically speaking?
Based in Glasgow, but we work all over Scotland and beyond when possible!

When did you first find yourself getting into the dramatic arts?
From as long as I can remember. I used to watch Ethel Merman films and imagine myself in a flowery swing cap beaming at the camera

What for you makes a good piece of theatre?
It has to make you feel something. I’d rather feel angry watching something than bored. Short is good too!

What is it about being an artistic director that makes you tick?
I mostly get to make bits of theatre that interest me. I like developing a way of working with other artists, sometimes over a long period of time. I also like the freedom to see a performance or someone work that I like and can find ways to collaborate with them.

What does Fiona Miller like to do when she’s not being theatrical?
My favourite pass time is going to different countries when I can. It freshens my senses. This year I have been to Japan, Spain, Romania and Italy. I have to say this is not a typical year for me.

You have been part of the Scottish Theatre scene for three decades now. How has the scene evolved in that time, including the development of trends you may have noticed?
When I started out there was hardly any youth theatre in Scotland. So, I was involved in that first big movement to develop Youth Theatre as a new theatre form and make it accessible to all the young people who wanted to take part. I feel that I am now part of a new trend, an Older People’s Theatre movement across the country! There has been a big shift in attitudes to theatre created by professional and non- professional performers over the last 30 years. There is more recognition that the quality of performance can be the same, the content and styles may be different. But I don’t think we are quite there yet. A lot of people still feel theatre is not for them.

You are a member of Tricky Hat, can you tell us about the company?
I’m Artistic Director of Tricky Hat. I co -founded the company 12 years ago. We create new theatre. We currently have a schools tour going to every 16 year old in Dundee at the moment. Our other main focus is making theatre with and about older people. All our work is collaborative, we work with big organisations like See Me Scotland to create dramas that challenge perceptions to community based organisations who support older, more frail and isolated people. Plus artistic partners like CCA, Cumbernauld Theatre, The Catstrand. We create live performance, digital installations, on line films and Forum Theatre based interventions.

What are the secrets to a good workshop with your fledgling actors/actresses?
Enabling people to discover that they are creative, that they do have a voice and that they feel safe enough to try new things. But most importantly a good laugh.

You will be bringing The Flames to the CCA in Glasgow next month, can you tell us about the play?
We have started devising it now. We have 24 Flames in this performance, more than double the last time. We prefer to call them performance events! We work together for 5 days then rehearse for one day, then perform to an audience. All the content of the show comes from the Flames lives, ideas or imaginations. Together with a director, a digital artist, a musician and a choreographer we decide the best medium to tell each of the stories. We don’t really know what the show will look like until the dress rehearsal. We are exploring choices, decisions, reasons to stay, and reasons to go.

What emotive responses do you expect from your audience?
Not to be bored! Being moved in anyway at all will do for me.

What does the rest of 2017 hold in store for Fiona Miller & Tricky Hat?
After this next Flames Performance on 4th October, the rest of the year will be focused on planning the next round of Flames events in association with the CCA. We also want to offer different experiences to the Flames community (once a Flame, always a Flame). We are working toward a collaborate with a Japanese artist and some older people in Japan ( Japan is leading the way in the world with its aging population) and the Flames. I think the cultural exchange would be fascinating. I also want to do a project called £10 Ticket based on the migration of people from Scotland in the 50’s 60’s to New Zealand & Canada. What are the parallels between then and migration now? I’d love to create a multi media performance of this on a railway platform.

You can See THE FLAMES @ Glasgow’s CCA, October 4th, 2017

A Play, a Pie and a Pint
Oran Mor
Glasgow
Sept 4th-9th

Script:  Stagecraft:  Performance: 

George (Vincent Friell), a novelist of the gritty Tartan Noir variety, now living in fashionable Crouch End, is forced to share a sleeper berth on the London to Inverness train, in this comedy drama by Simon Macallum. He and his sunglasses are not best pleased. Bren (Barbara Rafferty) the dismissive, overnight attendant is hardly selling the experience suggesting the food’s awful and the good night’s sleep that George is after, can be achieved – but only with the use of earplugs and chloroform. Into the compartment swaggers a young Glaswegian out of Catford called Goags (Neil Leiper) replete with attitude, agenda and poly bag of cans he’s determined to share as he ‘likes a good bevy on the train’.

As they head north, an intimidated George goes through emotional changes, worrying about his family, his bargain-book-bin sales and his fellow traveller’s mysterious black luggage. Meanwhile a probing Goags questions the author’s street credentials, delivering earthy aphorisms with hoodie chutzpah in a claustrophobic, bunk bed set, reminiscent of a prison cell. As wheels turn and plots develop, is someone being set-up and looking at porridge for breakfast? Given the action unfolds in real time, George, a novelist after all, seems a little too easily manipulated by his devious bunk mate. Has he never watched Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train? Where’s Farley Granger when you really need him?

Reviewer : David G Moffat