Taking a Shine to Acting

Lewis-born singer and actress ALYTH McCORMACK is set for a busy couple of months on the road, firstly in Dogstar Theatre’s revival of Seven Ages, and then with the band Shine, in a joint tour with The Passion. Alyth tells the Arts Journal about her dual career in the performing arts.

Arts Journal: Alyth, you performed in the original production of Seven Ages at the Highland Festival in 2001 with Hamish MacDonald – is that the case again this time?

Matthew Zajac and Alyth McCormack in Seven Ages © Euan Miles

Alyth McCormack: No, it’s actually going to be me and Matthew Zajac, who directed the show last time, who will be onstage. Hamish is directing – they have swapped round this time! And of course, Hamish is also the writer.

AJ: It looked a very demanding role, or rather, series of roles, since the play is in seven different sections, each with different characters.

AM: It is demanding, yes. There are seven different stories, and within them we play about nine different characters each, so you have to change very quickly from one character to the next, and work out how to give yourself enough time to establish that character each time. We have a wee bit more time to rehearse and prepare than we did the last time, which will let us look at the characters in more depth, and I think the stories are stronger this time as well. Hamish has rewritten a couple of them to make them a wee bit more topical. I don’t want to give too much away, but you’ll see what I mean!

AJ: It seemed to be a very physically demanding play as well.

AM: Very. Even down to things like having to find a different kind of walk or a different kind of stance for each of the different characters. The physical effort in keeping the energy up through all the changes is very important, and what is going on with these characters does absorb a lot of physical energy. I love the fact that it uses so much energy, though. It’s a different kind of performing to singing, although that uses energy as well, but in a different way. It’s quite intense, but very enjoyable.

AJ: Many people will think of you more as a singer – how did you get into acting?

AM: I did some when I was younger, and some more at college, where you had to do drama if you were singer, but in fact it was really through singing that I got involved in acting, and that was in Hamish’s first play, The Captain’s Collection. Hamish had written the play so that he would play one character, and was looking for somebody else he could bounce ideas off, and that was my role. It developed into about six different characters as we worked on it.

AJ: Do you have a preference for singing over acting, or vice versa?

AM: I like to do both, especially when it works well! I think in the last year or so I have probably done more theatre work than singing, including Seven Hunters at the Highland Festival and Wee Stories’s Arthur, but it’s not always like that. I think I’m quite lucky that I get to do both, to be honest.

AJ: One of your regular singing roles is with the band Shine, with Corrina Hewat and Mary McMaster. Tell us about the ‘Mistresses of Harmony’ tour you have coming up in March – I believe you’re not alone.

Mistresses of Harmony

AM: We are touring with another female trio called The Passion, with Jacqui Dankworth, Liane Carroll and Sara Colman. They are coming from more of a jazz than a folk direction. The idea originally came from Chris Read at the Adastra agency. She had seen Shine and The Passion separately, and thought why not put them together on a tour? We hadn’t heard them at that point, but it was quite an eye-opener for us. They are probably the opposite of Shine in some respects. We can be quite spacious and subtle and almost internal in our approach to songs, while The Passion are really out there and in your face.

AJ: It doesn’t seem an obvious pairing on the surface – how did it work out?

AM: We both wondered how it would work, to be honest, but when we got together last August in Birmingham, which was where it started, it proved very comfortable. I think what binds us together is that both groups love singing, and we love songs. When you work with people like that, you understand where they are coming from, and you respect that. Somewhere along the line we managed to meet in the middle.

AJ: Is there a collaboration involved, or is it a straight double bill?

AM: We introduce the two groups separately, but they also sing on some of our songs, we sing on some of their songs, and then we do a set together. The collaboration has been great onstage, and they are wonderful folk as well, so we’re looking forward to meeting up with them again.

AJ: It doesn’t look as though you are going to get much time to put your feet up between tours?

AM: I’ve got enough time to get home and wash my clothes and then out again, and Mary McMaster is on the Seven Ages tour as well, so she is in the same boat. It was Cliar who played the live music last time, but this time we have Mary on harp and Johnny Hardie on fiddle.

AJ: You sing in contexts ranging from straight unaccompanied Gaelic song through the fusion approach of Sunhoney, your band with Aidan O’Rourke, and lots of places in between. What is your own take on the updating of the Gaelic song tradition?

AM: The songs can stand on their own, and always have done. There will always be tradition bearers who carry that on, and I’ll always love that. For me, though, I think because of the background I came from and the fact that words are very important to me, I’ve always tried to develop ways to colour songs and bring out the interpretation of the lyrics through the musical arrangements. I think that is really what I try to do.

AJ: Is there a deliberate aim to create a more contemporary feel, or perhaps reach an audience that wouldn’t normally be exposed to Gaelic song?

Shine

AM: I suppose there is, and there are a number of singers out there who are doing that anyway. I wanted to try to find my own way into that. The whole scene has changed a lot. When I was younger there weren’t any bands like Capercaillie who were out there doing what they did, and I didn’t have that model to aspire to – people would ask why do you want to be a Gaelic singer? That has all changed, and the whole folk scene in Scotland has changed, it’s so vibrant now. I think we have led the way with exploring fusion in folk music, and although we don’t all have to do that, or do it all the time, I feel Scotland has taken the lead in that.

AJ: You mentioned your background and your love of words – was that a family thing?

AM: The love of words probably came from my mother, who was an English teacher, and both my mother and my maternal granny were Gaelic speakers. The singing voice came from my father’s side of the family – he was the singer, him and his mother.

AJ: You had a few things on at Celtic Connections this year, including the revisiting Aidan’s excellent ‘New Voices’ commission from last year, but I noticed you didn’t make Dick Gaughan’s gala concert on the final night, although you were listed in the programme. What happened there?

AM: I had been approached to do the concert, and I was definitely up for it, but in the end I only got a confirmation about ten days before the gig, and I was already involved in Aidan’s commission just two nights before, and in the preparations for Seven Ages. I just decided it would be too much to try to do justice to them all, and bowed out gracefully.

Alyth McCormack is a National Mod Gold Medal winner, and one of Scotland’s foremost young Gaelic singers and actresses. She has appeared in The Captain’s Collection and Seven Ages for Dogstar, and The Wedding and Seven Hunters for the Highland Festival. She has toured Britain and Europe with various bands, and was invited to represent Scottish Gaelic in the Canadian/BBC production Celtic Electric in 1998. She has recorded two solo albums, and appeared in Tacsi as a solo artist. She currently performs with the bands Shine and  Sunhoney. Other acting work includes The Hogmanay Boys for Theatre Workshop in Edinburgh, Machair for STV, and Arthur for Wee Stories.

Tour dates for Seven Ages are:
Skerray Village Hall, Thursday 19 February 2004
Kinlochbervie Village Hall, Friday 20 February 2004
Ullapool Village Hall, Saturday 21 February 2004
Sabhal Mor Ostaig, Isle of Skye, Tuesday 24 February 2004
Arainn Shuaineirt (The Sunart Centre), Strontian, Wednesday 25 February 2004
Mount Stuart, Rothesay, Bute, Thursday 26 February 2004
Gilmorehill G12, Glasgow, Friday 27 February 2004
Carnegie Hall, Clashmore, Saturday 28 February 2004
Plockton Hall, Tuesday 2 March 2004
Aros Centre, Portree, Isle of Skye, Wednesday 3 March 2004
Aros Hall, Tobermory, Isle of Mull, Friday 5 March 2004
Lonach Hall, Strathdon, Saturday 6 March 2004
Lochinver Village Hall, Tuesday 9 March 2004
Eden Court Theatre, Inverness, Wednesday 10 March 2004
Birnam Institute, Thursday 11 March 2004
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Friday 12-Saturday 13 March 2004

Tour dates for Shine & The Passion are:
Tolbooth, Jail Wynd, Stirling, Friday 19 March 2004
Sunart Centre, Strontian, Saturday 20 March 2004
The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen, Sunday 21 March 2004
Resolis Community Hall, Resolis, Thursday 25 March 2004
The Lochside Theatre, Castle Douglas, Friday 26 March 2004
Strathclyde Suite, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Saturday 27 March 2004

Alyth McCormack spoke to Kenny Mathieson.