Tron Theatre, Glasgow, and touring 2008

Swindle and Death (photo - Douglas Robertson)

WOULD IT be possible for a theatre company to scratch a living from touring the church halls and community centres of the Highlands and Islands without ever coming under the radar of the press or the Scottish Arts Council? Would it be able to stay invisible in this way for 300 years?

Even playwright Peter Arnott, who dreamed up the idea of such a company for this Mull Theatre production, would admit it is unlikely. But allowing for satirical exaggeration, he’s not so wide of the mark. If it’s true that the nation’s arts are controlled by a metropolitan elite, it’s lovely to imagine that a band of itinerant players led by actor-managers Brian Swindle and Eric Death have survived since 1707 entirely without their help.

What happens next in Swindle and Death is more of a problem. Ever since Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night’s Dream, dramatists have been tempted to write plays within plays, so running the risk of appearing self-regarding and indulgent. Unless the send-up is spot on, it’s too easy to fall into cliché.

This is what’s wrong with the bad acting and creaky historical verse dramas that characterise the Swindle and Death repertoire. It has two unfortunate effects. The first is that unless your sense of humour never developed beyond Peter Glaze’s routines on Crackerjack, it isn’t funny. The second is we end up thinking the Scottish Arts Council would be absolutely right to ignore such a second-rate outfit, which undermines Arnott’s own argument about the artist being superior to the bureaucrat.

This is a shame because Arnott’s debate is worth a public airing. He contends that the values of administrators, with their love of health-and-safety regulations and commitment to social policy, are shaping not just the educational outreach programmes but the very nature of the work that gets staged. After a tedious first half, the play suddenly gets interesting (and momentarily funny) when an arts council mole rewrites a play about Mary Queen of Scots in accordance with gender equality guidelines.

The moment does not last, however, and the play is soon verging off into a daft plot about actors being genuinely murdered in classic theatrical death scenes, only to rise from the dead. It’s another example of a play that never stays in the real world long enough for its satirical argument to hit home.

© Mark Fisher, 2008

Links

• Mull Theatre
• Mark Fisher’s Scottish Theatre Blog