Bothy culture

ALAN WILKINS’ first play, The Nest, explores the characters and interactions between five hill walkers stranded by storm in a remote bothy in the west Highlands. The playwright describes the genesis of the play, which is touring Highland venues in the Traverse Theatre’s production this month.

Arts Journal: The Nest is the first play you have had staged, but is it your first attempt at writing one?

Alan Wilkins: No. The first play I had written was called Childish Things, and was pretty much a typical start out, but I sent it to the Traverse, and they did a reading of it. I then wrote a second play, which is set in Madrid, and that one had a reading from RSAMD students at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow, but this is the first one that has gone to a full production. It was commissioned by the Traverse on the basis of the first one.

AJ: Where did your interest in hill-walking come from?

AW: I think originally from childhood. We always used to holiday up north, but then other interests intruded and other things took over for a while, so it was latent for a decade or so, I would say. I then did a bit of bar work up in Wester Ross, and was really enjoying being back in the Highlands again, and I made a very conscious decision after that to start back on the hills again.

AJ: The Nest is set at Kinbreak bothy below Sgurr Mor – did you do that hill?

AW: No, I haven’t yet, but I did stay in the bothy during a trip I made last summer, a coast to coast walk I did from Montrose to Morar, which I decided to do east to west rather than west to east like the annual TGO Challenge. It was July and absolutely boiling, and I didn’t make the summit that time. I was checking out bothies, not going hugely out of my way, but if I knew there was one nearby, I would make a point of looking. I had already written a couple of drafts of the play, but choosing Kinbreak helped to make it all a lot more concrete in my mind.

AJ: How central is hill-walking to the play?

AW: I think it does deal with issues of displacement and our relationship to the environment, and I’m not sure that would work in just any other setting. It does need that context, I think.

AJ: Have you based the characters on people you met in the hills?

AW: None of them is based on any one person, no, but I think people may recognize the various attitudes they have toward walking and the hills. You do meet the really serious expedition types, for example, with that macho element to them, and the folk who are more in love with the planning and the gear than the hills themselves, and the people for whom it is really an essential experience. And of course, you do get the people who don’t really understand what it is all about, but are out there looking.

AJ: The situation you have is chosen is a classic theatrical one in the broad sense of putting a group of disparate people together in enforced circumstances, although maybe not in a west Highland bothy.

AW: Yes. There is certainly a whole tradition of what we might call confinement drama, so I’m not claiming that as a novel device! I did like the idea of a bothy being the vehicle for that in the sense that there is a literal kind of entrapment for the people who have come there. They all want to be out there walking, and can’t, so their enforced coming together has even greater irony.

AJ: Being stormbound in a bothy is plausible enough, given Highland weather.

AW: Even if it’s not actually life-threatening, which it obviously can be, Scottish hill weather can certainly be unpleasant enough to keep you in the bothy. I went up a Munro a few weeks ago with a couple of the actors, and the weather changed drastically even on that walk, so being kept in the bothy is plausible enough.

AJ: You started out in theatre as an actor, didn’t you?

AW: Yes, but I decided that wasn’t really what I wanted to pursue, and I went off and taught English as a Foreign Language for a while in Poland and Spain. Poland I loved, but in Spain I was mainly teaching business English, and it was far less appealing than the work I had been doing in the university in Poland. Writing the first play was quite a conscious decision to see a project through – I had started various things before, but never finished them, and I lucked out.

AJ: Did anything in particular spark that off?

AW: I’m not sure if it was an age thing. When I was 20 I quite liked the idea of being a writer, but I didn’t really enjoy the process of writing, and I’m a lot happier with that now.

AJ: How rewarding is to see your work make the stage for the first time?

AW: It’s great. There are really two distinct stages to that experience. The first one is the whole process of working with the actors and being at rehearsal and seeing the characters you have put on the page flesh out and develop, which is fascinating in itself. Towards the end of that process you start really wanting to see it with an audience. Of course, it was a bit nerve wracking, but very rewarding.

AJ: Did the play itself change from your idea of it in that process?

AW: By the time it reached performance it was as I envisaged it, and the performances definitely brought out the characters I had imagined. The designer has done a great job on the set – he came up with something that was slightly less naturalistic than I had envisaged, and it works really well. I had this image of the actual bothy I had been in, while his take on that was a little different. I think that process is central to writing for theatre – if you don’t enjoy that collaborative element, if you don’t accept that it isn’t just you that is creating the work, then you are in the wrong business, and the artistic input of the people you are working with is very important.

AJ: Finally, Alan, are you on Munro round yourself?

AW: A very leisurely one. I’m up to about 60, and I’m happy to spread the rest over the next 10 or 15 years, but I do record them, so technically I have to say I am doing the round. But there are lots of other kinds of walking I love to do. The Corbetts are actually a tougher list, I would say, and I also like long back-packing walks like the coast to coast one I mentioned, so I’m not obsessing on bagging Munros.

(Alan Wilkins spoke to Kenny Mathieson)
 
 
The Nest can be seen at the following venues:
Aros Hall, Tobermory, Isle of Mull, Thursday 6 May 2004
Easdale Island Hall, Easdale, Saturday 8 May 2004
Macphail Centre, Ullapool, Tuesday 11 May 2004
Coigach Community Hall, Achiltibuie, Wednesday 12 May 2004
Rosehall Community Arts, Rosehall, Thursday 13 May 2004
Ardross Hall, Ardross, Friday 14 May 2004
Village Hall, Ballachulish, Monday 17 May 2004
Corran Halls, Oban, Tuesday 18 May 2004
Aros Centre, Portree, Isle of Skye, Friday 21 May 2004
Dornie Village Hall, Lochalsh, Saturday 22 May 2004

  
© Kenny Mathieson, 2004