Various Venues, Inverness, 18-22 October 2007

Drama Na H-Alba 3

BILLED AS Scotland’s International Theatre Festival I managed, over four days to see theatre from Sweden, Wales and Glasgow. There was a fair amount of local talent, too, and ultimately it was this that gave the greatest entertainment.

The opening night of The Big Shop (Inverness City Centre) – a concept proved elsewhere, but a novelty for Inverness – certainly provoked interest from a number of people. On each night, there were good audience numbers, something which couldn’t be said for all the events of the festival.

The audience was split into groups of about twenty, and assigned a tour guide, who directed us around six venues showing six different, fifteen-minute plays. The weather was on our side, wheelchair access confirmed and, ignoring the amused [or bemused – Ed.] expressions of the people we passed, the show began.

The beauty of short snippets like this is that if you don’t particularly enjoy one of the sets, you know you don’t have to wait long for it to end. In an event like this, the players have to engage the audience immediately and present the play as a complete event and not a longer play that ends suddenly.

Once or twice we were not sure if the play had finished, relying on our guide to cue the applause. I enjoyed most of them, and it was welcome to have so many local references and indeed local actors taking part.

Speaking to people afterwards, we each had our own favourites, from the drama of the cage to the surreal astral job centre. It worked best when the story related to the building it was being performed in, and I felt more could have been done to make his link, or to link the stories together in some way – otherwise you are just left with a series of short plays.

THE OTHER local event involved The Big Shop’s evil shopkeeper from the tourist tat shop in another, altogether less glamorous, role in Ronnie Barker’s Mum (Spectrum 2). The excellent Jackie Goode played to full houses, and delivered another performance worthy of the local following she has clearly built up.

I expected more comedy from a play written by Ronnie Barker, but while there were some funny moments, this was a very bleak play. The story of a middle aged part-time cleaner who spends her day talking to her dead mum, mainly about the boyfriend tragically killed, thereby destroying her hopes of a happy ever after.

It became ever clearer that the happy ever after was never going to happen and the character’s hopelessness reflected this. The visuals enhanced the story; warming herself at the fire, shuffling into slippers and the elaborate preparation of the ‘nice wee bit of ham’ for tea.

SHOWING next door was Reeling & Writhing’s Only the Men (Spectrum 1), a play inspired by author Tim Munn’s visit to Sanna Bay in Ardnamurchan. Playing to much praise in the central belt, perhaps those audiences were oblivious to this tired colonial view of rural life.

It just felt like a story we had heard so many times before. Middle-aged man from Glasgow takes his dead father’s ashes to the family croft, supposedly to create a living, and spends the whole of his time sitting around the (conveniently white, right in front of the house, home to rare birds) beach finally having ‘the’ conversation with his dead father.

Meanwhile the ghost of the sister/daughter hangs around playing the flute and looking considerably older than she did when the lorry hit her as a child (being raised in the Highlands, it was almost inevitable she would run into the road without looking).

Yes, the set was impressive, yes the music was beautiful and yes, it was well acted, but if this is the best that Glasgow can provide, I really don’t think we need to trail all the way down there for some good theatre.

FINALLY, Howard Marks (Ironworks), drugs dealer (reformed), author (best-selling) and stand-up comedian (by default), was the least likely part of any theatre festival. Although making fun of authors and their attempts to promote books, much of what he said could apply to the theatre world.

He is brutally honest, both about his drug-taking and about how he ensures he appeals to his target audience. That audience (and he filled the Ironworks) were quite clear about what they wanted from the show and he made sure they got it – lots of swearing, poking fun at the establishment, drug stories and tips on legal ways to get high.

I went along to the show fully prepared to dislike this man, but was soon laughing at his stories and being amazed at the adventures he got himself in to. After having a thoroughly good time, we were all invited to meet Howard in the bar after the show, with the promise of some of the stories that his lawyers had forbidden him from telling on stage.

I declined the offer, feeling far too sober for such an experience and drove home pondering that while I do not agree with what he advocates, I fully support his right to say these things in public. And if he is able to fill theatres and make a living from it, then good luck to him – there are a good few people out there who could learn a lot from him.

© Aileen Skinner, 2007

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• Dràma Na h-Alba