A Play, a Pie and a Pint

LIZ LOCHHEAD: Imagine, 300 and something plays

which did not exist before they premiered at 1pm at Oran Mor.

OK, flashback. A decade ago...

-PETER MULLAN:

-A Play, a Pie and a Pint...the lunch time theatre at

Oran Mor in Glasgow's West End owes its success to

theatre producer David MacLennan's passion and drive.

He's a producer extraordinaire, you can't say more than that.

You think...!

You could come in any day of the week.

You're getting 200 to 300 people

sitting in that theatre every lunch-time.

It has to be the most successful theatre in Scotland.

2014 is a big year for us.

It's our 10th birthday.

In the autumn, we will do our 21st season.

Ten years! Ten years...I'm not surprised it's been successful.

Bring up on the stage...

David is one of Scotland's most gifted and experienced producers

working tirelessly for Scottish theatre for over 40 years.

I've always been known as a man who enjoyed a dram!

But, on this occasion, if my voice

is a little slurred

it has nothing to do with that.

I've been diagnosed recently with motor neurone disease,

and I am stone-cold sober!

But, this week, I'm particularly pleased

to welcome you to Mortal Memories, by Liz Lochhead.

CHEERING

I've always felt that theatre...

and the arts in general, are part of life.

They're not something special that should be locked away

in a private place, that they should be concerned with humanity,

and that is my purpose in making theatre,

to tackle issues that concern people deeply...

as well as occasionally being naughty and just giving them

a damn good laugh.

I'll do it later this afternoon. Is that cool?

It all began with a chance meeting

in Glasgow's Byres Road with entrepreneur Colin Beattie,

who was transforming an old church into an arts venue.

And I said to him, without really thinking,

"How would you like a lunch-time theatre, Colin?"

And he said, "Yes, I would."

INDISTINCT DIALOGUE

COLIN: 'I was very confident if there were anyone going to take forward

'a new concept in theatre, it would be David.'

There's an old world breeding in David that comes from

a responsibility to all.

And I think that comes through in his work,

I think it comes through in his whole philosophy towards life.

'And the only disagreement we had, Colin and I, was I said,'

"I would like to do this thing called...

"A Pie, A Pint and A Play."

And he said, "No, it's called A Play, A Pie and A Pint."

He put the play first.

..to welcome you to Astonishing Archie by Billy Paterson.

APPLAUSE

'And shortly before we opened...'

I was getting nervous.

We were doing 12 plays each for a week and I said,

"Colin, I think I can guarantee you

"that these will be good plays

"and they will be professionally produced,

"but the one thing I can't guarantee is that you'll get an audience."

And Colin said, "Oh, no, no, I know that,

"but you will after the fifth season."

In the beginning, he would come in,

help set up the trestle tables, bring in all the chairs.

He was casting it, he was reading endless plays,

contacting writers. He would be writing up people's autobiographies,

printing them out on the computer

so that they were ready for a Monday morning.

So, it was everything. He was a one-man band.

# We're off on the aff...

-# Off on the... #

-Now, at Oran Mor, you can

see a play 42 weeks in the year.

-There are 32 new commissions...

-Superb!

..four commissions to cut down classics

and a summer and winter panto.

Well done!

We're a very small team,

so, all the money we have goes on stage.

We don't have offices full of people,

but I am hugely assisted by my co-producer, Susie Armitage,

and by my associate producer, Sarah MacFarlane.

David is the most fantastic man to work with.

He is just a man of such amazing energy and enthusiasm.

We've got a good working relationship,

so when we're reading scripts and things,

there'll be ones that I champion and ones that he champions,

but we're never that divergent.

Casting is very important.

We like to have a balance of the well-known, even the starry,

so at one extreme we might have Robbie Coltrane performing,

or David Hayman.

At the other extreme, people fresh out of drama school.

In the second season, Robbie Coltrane,

best known as Hagrid in the Harry Potter films,

appeared in The Brother's Suit,

written by Peter McDougall and directed by David.

He had not performed on stage for 15 years.

I remember, you know, saying to you.

I said, "My God! 500 Glaswegians

"sitting drinking and having their dinner! You know, it's

"going to be like one of those Frank Sinatra concerts where all you can

"hear is the knives and forks clattering at The Sands."

But it was extraordinary.

Glasgow audiences are known for being tough, but fair, I would say.

As soon as the play started and David would stand up and say,

"Right, here's the play going now."

And that was it. Total silence.

Theatre's an extravagance, and you've got to be able to

catch the people on your lines, because there's no tricks.

And when Robbie stands up there, you're utterly...

you've heard it many times before, but you're utterly naked.

I actually had a bit of a panic attack.

I just thought, "I'm never going to learn this,

"it's so...such a short time,"

and David was wonderful.

He was fantastically encouraging. He said, "Yes, you'll do it,

"yes, you'll do it. Yes, we'll do it."

You will be absolutely fine on the night,

-and we were, bizarrely, weren't we?

-Oh, yeah.

CHEERING

In its ten-year history,

David has won numerous awards for A Play, A Pie and A Pint.

The lovely thing about this award is it's actually an award to

the whole theatre community of Scotland.

It's your award. Well done.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

But his love affair with theatre first began when he was a young boy.

When I was about 14,

I went to see Joan Littlewood's production of Oh, What A Lovely War.

And that just blew my mind, because suddenly here was Peter Pan,

the five-past eight show variety

with a tremendous political message

about the crass stupidity of the ruling classes

during the First World War,

and I came reeling out of that theatre thinking,

"Yeah, this is something I'd love to be involved in."

David achieved his ambition and was in at the beginning

of the political touring theatre company 7:84,

formed in 1971 by John McGrath, his brother-in-law.

APPLAUSE AND DRUM ROLL

CHEERING

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. HE SPEAKS GAELIC

Welcome to the 7:84 Theatre Company's production of

The Cheviot, The Stag and the Black, Black Oil.

It was really a ground-breaker in many ways,

because it embraced the communities it was talking about

by going to the village hall.

# Than less than the pleasures

# And what's left behind. #

My sister, Liz, learned to play the accordion in six weeks flat.

I tried to learn the bass,

but I was sacked after two days because I was bloody hopeless.

Now, it is being done by outside capital with the connivance of

the local ruling class in central government.

They all became family. There were the MacLennans and then

there were the rest of us. So, when people just asked us

what the politics of 7:84 was,

we always said it was Marxist-MacLennanist.

At the time we kept that quiet, but now we can say it out loud.

..surprised and disorganised and compliant.

I always think of David as

that kind of rock, the physical rock.

He was a stage manager.

He put up our lights, what little there were at that time.

He did the sound and he made sure that the van was loaded.

You just knew you were in good hands with Dave.

After five years with 7:84,

David and fellow thespian Dave Anderson formed

their own touring theatre company, Wildcat.

Dave was a rock 'n' roll musician and we just hit it off immediately.

He's always been the one to say, "I'm going to do this. Are you in?"

That's how it works. I just go, "Aye...

"Aye, all right."

And find that I'm a founder member, you know, by kind of default.

We seemed to have the same kind of political attitudes.

He didn't seem to like the bullshit of most theatre.

We saw eye-to-eye, you know, we kind of liked each other.

You know what's wrang wi' us?

Nae money.

Nae work...

After 20 successful years...

Wildcat lost its funding from the Scottish Arts Council.

It hit us both pretty hard, but, for him,

it was 20 years of bloody hard work.

And the feet were cawed from him.

David was shattered.

He had built Wildcat up.

They were touring, he was, you know,

living his dream of taking theatre out to the people.

And then, suddenly, he kind of...

reforms himself when he comes up with A Play, A Pie and A Pint.

Lunch-time theatre has existed all over the world for a long time.

What's different about this is, you come along, you get your play,

you get a pie, and you get a pint or another kind of drink.

That's a lovely carrot to tease people with.

He's a genius.

It's absolutely extraordinary. It gives a platform to

young directors, new writers, young actors, and designers.

It is great for the community, it now has a worldwide reputation

and to play on that stage is one of the most exciting...

..golden spaces ever, because it's so intimate.

Shall we pick up from, "Now, let's get back to the matter in hand,"

shall we go from there?

Now, let's get back to the matter in hand, Miss Matheson.

And what is the matter in hand?

Your involvement with Vita Sackville-West.

I think when you read plays, two things can strike you very quickly.

One is, this is a distinctive voice,

and the other thing that can strike you very quickly is

the quality of the dialogue.

I have a duty of care, do you see?

Is it...?

Does it release the narrative in a timely, interesting way?

It means, Sir John,

that only you could make snooping a moral imperative.

I resent that.

Yes, I'm sure you do.

As the associate director of the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh,

We regularly do a season of A Play, A Pie and A Pint

presented by the Traverse,

starting over at Oran Mor.

Cos you seem to have beaten him as soon as you get him

-on the snooping, snooping, snooping.

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was great cos you were caught out, and he felt really exposed,

-didn't he?

-Yeah.

-Which I thought was really exciting.

'David sends us some plays, we send David some plays,

'and we sort of discuss which plays we're going to do

'and which plays work in the season and, really excitingly,

'one of the real pearls for me was Love With A Capital 'L' by Tony Cox.'

-The wrong side of these...

-Well, it's her protest, isn't it?

-Yeah.

Her little protest about working for the BBC and beginning to hate it

and the bureaucracy and the way it's run and being beholden to Reith.

This is her little "write on only one side of the paper". Shan't!

I have had other things produced in other medium

and I've done some radio and I've done a film script recently.

But I haven't actually had a play produced,

so it's an enormous thrill for me.

It isn't an involvement, Sir John, it's a full-blown love affair!

And with a capital 'L', no doubt.

-Only on my side, I'm afraid.

-Why?

Her heart, Sir John, belongs to Harold.

There's almost a sense that her writing about the BBC,

is even more offensive than her sexuality.

Yeah, absolutely.

Lessons For Female Revolutionaries: Part Two.

I believe in breaking down borders

and getting rid of borders,

I believe in international solidarity

and sharing our culture with

people abroad and enjoying their culture in our country.

When I turned up in Scotland in 2004 to set up the National Theatre of

Scotland, David was one of the first people who got in contact with me.

We talked about how the National Theatre of Scotland

with our very generous budget, compared to the tiny amount of money

that David was making A Play, A Pie and A Pint work on,

how we could come together in some kind of collaboration

that was meaningful and was genuine and was creative, that would be

something that neither of the other organisations would be doing

without the other.

And, of course, David, in his brilliance, said, "International.

"I would love that A Play, A Pie and A Pint

"could be a little bit more international in its approach."

Even if he did do those things, he didn't mean to hurt anyone!

And we discovered some fantastic new talent that

we're still developing, 15 writers that we would otherwise not

have had a contact with unless David had come up with this amazing plan.

It's a net that is cast wide.

Shut up!

To date, there have been plays from Latin America

the Arab world, China and the Caribbean.

I never saw him pray!

DRUMBEAT

Believer? But, sir, so many people in my village are believers,

-but they don't pray.

-DRUMBEAT

I'm sorry! I shut up!

What's wonderful is that, you know, David doesn't say,

"OK, we're doing six plays this year,

"and they're going to be about this."

He says, "Writers, come to me with your ideas."

You can say to David, "I would like to do a play about this," and

he remembers that and he says, "Do you want to do that this season?"

And it kind of gives you a kick in the backside and makes you do it.

Paddy Cunneen, a great musician, composer,

director, had never written a play

and I commissioned his first play, Fleeto.

He was really encouraging. He said, "Send me something."

So, I did.

It was a play about knife crime.

It was written in iambic pentameter.

It's very hard...

It's really uncompromising.

You didn't know that when you stab someone,

they look you right in the eye, did you?

And he was really, really positive and he kept saying to me,

"Where's the next bit? Where's the next bit? Where's the next bit?"

Which was fantastic,

because that's really all the encouragement that you need.

So mad was I with hunger and with fear, I panned his face full

whack with knuckle-fist, again, again, again, I hit him hard.

The way it works at A Play, A Pie and A Pint is he says,

"You've got a play, come in, do it, here are the resources,

"and make the play what you can in these circumstances."

And, because the resources are poor,

what it really does is it focuses on the play. So, consequently,

as a training ground for writers, it's fantastic

because there's no hiding place.

You have to get your play to work.

Fleeto has been a huge success.

It's won awards, been performed in prisons, schools,

been seen throughout the United Kingdom as well as in

Milan, Eindhoven and Holland, and as far afield as Adelaide in Australia.

So, this week, I'm particularly pleased to welcome you

to The Uglies by Dave Anderson and me.

CHEERING

The Panto, The Pie, and The Pint seemed, to me, an obvious winner.

It's Glasgow and Glasgow is addicted to pantomime.

Everybody loves it.

ALL: # We're cacking our drawers

# Cacking our drawers

# Cacking our drawers! #

-Oh, sorry.

-ALL: # Don't whistle in the dressing room... #

Going up on the stage.

# The scenery will fall

# And mention not the Scottish Play

# Or go stand in the hall... #

Marvellous, marvellous!

Francis, Julia, you can go and have a large brandy. OK?

THEY CHEER

It was a great opportunity to work again closely with Dave Anderson.

We share a lot of the same daft humour,

the same thoughts about variety and the fun of it.

-From bitch!

-Is it me that says bitch?

I did say it. And I did say it.

-Bitch, cow, hoor, sow...

-- Do I say "hoor"?

No, I say "hoor".

BOTH: Bitch, cow, hoor, sow...

A lot of people who collaborate,

they describe the relationship as like a marriage.

I don't feel it's like that at all.

It's much more like...

..sibling rivalry.

CHATTERING

CHEERING

APPLAUSE

MUSIC PLAYS

# Before the lights go up

# Before the music starts

# While all the actors think, "We will forget our parts..."

Although we're aiming it at adults, it's very childish.

And it's about us, like, having fun.

# We're shiteing ourselves

# Shiteing ourselves

# Shiteing ourselves...! #

LAUGHTER

It seems to me that the audience's critical faculties

go oot the windae when the put the panto on.

I don't believe I've had the pleasure.

Oh, come on!

You've had the pleasure hunners o' times!

We've a' seen the pictures!

LAUGHTER

I think the great thing is, with the pantomimes,

they have that Wildcat feel about them.

..table at ma hoose?

The music, the songs, the politics, and I think the public love that.

-Oh, it's a rare night for it, eh?

-A rare night for what?

Oh, come on, we all know you're for looking for a lumber,

then look nae further,

I mean, already it's obvious that you're pleased to see me!

LAUGHTER

I get to be silly and I get to be two people

and sing random songs and dance about

and you can kind of really have a personality, which is nice.

Cinderella, you shall go to the ball!

AUDIENCE: Woo!

The panto is vital to the coffers,

so much so, that we claim to have discovered, down the Ayrshire coast,

during the Glasgow Fair, a tradition of Summer Panto.

I'm not entirely sure if it existed and now we do two a year.

Ker-ching!

Windae wipers!

# We shall not, we shall not be moved... #

Get your skooshers on.

# We shall not be moved. #

Hey!

APPLAUSE

Oh, superb! Very, very professional and the satire was really funny.

I think it's excellent! I have never experienced that, so it's fantastic!

-Happy?

-I don't want to go back to work!

THEY LAUGH

# You must remember this...

# A kiss is just a kiss

# A sigh is just... #

But the success of A Play, A Pie and A Pint extends well beyond

the West End of Glasgow.

# The fundamental things apply... #

Morag Fullarton's stage version of Casablanca has gone on to play

in theatres in Barbados and Paris.

# And when two lovers kiss... #

Sam, I thought I told you never to play that.

Rick!

There's a sense that exciting things are happening,

starting in this little corner of Glasgow and growing

and building into something that's reaching out all over the world.

WATER SLOSHES AND BIRDS QUACK

Icelandic writer, Jon Atli Jonasson's play The Deep

went on to become a film.

Being a fairly established playwright in Iceland,

and having no difficulty in getting plays I've written staged...

..this was a bit tricky.

Nobody wanted to do it.

After the production here, I got interest from film people and,

yeah, we made the film.

I think it's the most expensive film we've ever made in Iceland.

It got very well received and was short-listed

for the Best Foreign Film in the Oscars,

so it's had a huge success.

So, that's an example, quite an extreme one, I have to be honest.

We're not bothering Hollywood every day...

BAGPIPES PLAY

..but one of the interesting ones which gives me

great satisfaction is that a small company in Philadelphia called

Tiny Dynamite got in touch and they said,

"We've been following what you're doing on your website.

"Can we do it here?"

-Do we have pints? ALL:

-Aye, aye!

-Do we have pies? ALL:

-Yes.

We have got a helluva play for you tonight, so, you guys are...

I was just struck by how clever it seemed,

how simple...

but also unique.

And there certainly wasn't anything like that

going on over here in America.

-And then if you can bring the bottle as well...

-Yes, I will.

And then... 'I e-mailed David in Glasgow and,

'I think within 24 hours, David had called me,

'left the most wonderful message, encouraging me.'

So, let's just try that transition.

He has sent me many, many scripts,

specifically ones that he feels will work over here in Philadelphia.

I'm listening, Your Majesty.

LAUGHTER

The voice starts to laugh...

And a lot of the playwrights we produce,

people just haven't heard of over here

and there's a real building excitement about the UK

playwrights, and especially the Scottish playwrights.

I hated cold water currents.

-You said you loved cold water currents.

-I hated them.

LAUGHTER

'So, it's been amazingly successful.'

BAGPIPES PLAY AND APPLAUSE

The global outreach of A Play, A Pie and A Pint is still expanding

with discussion in progress for A Play, A Pie and A Pint

in San Paolo in Brazil.

BAGPIPES PLAY

It's a colossal success and I put that down to two or three things.

You put it down to the fact that it's compact.

If you add to that a guiding hand of somebody who has got very good

taste in Dave MacLennan's case, but has very open taste.

He's not driving an agenda.

He was very obviously at ease with what people would bring to him

and he would find a way to enable that.

At the heart of good drama is tension...

..tension, story-telling,

and distinctly, believably drawn characters.

-I am waiting.

-Yes, I can see you are.

-Well?

-Well...

SHE CLEARS HER THROAT

..Mr and Mrs Nicholson believe very firmly in married love...

but not in the conventional sense.

I am all ears, Miss Matheson.

They reject the convention that marriage demands exclusive love.

So, their marriage vows were meaningless!

They also reject the idea...

..that women should love only men and that men should love only women.

LAUGHTER

Repeat that last statement, if you please.

We love coming here. It's one of our favourite places.

We come here every Wednesday for ten years

and we wouldn't miss it for anything, and today's play was fantastic.

I thought it was a tour de force,

and the acting superb.

That was absolutely excellent.

I would be coming back. This is a first time.

Glasgow at lunch? I don't think so, Dave.

But lovely, a nice idea.

So, if you ever need to take any advice from anybody,

don't take it from me.

I remember my husband saying to me, "This is absolutely brilliant

"what David's doing, but it's not going to work for too long.

"They'll maybe struggle on for a couple of seasons."

Well, nobody was more delighted than he to be 100% wrong about it.

To celebrate A Play, A Pie and A Pint's first decade,

there's a party at Oran Mor.

# ..like you're supposed to grow

# I could grow any way I choose... #

You gave me a wonderful play.

-Great celebration.

-Yeah.

It's a great thing what you've done.

David, I cannae be here tonight at the party. I'm in China. I'm gutted!

But this is for you...

You are a legend in your own lunch-time,

Which is not to insult you, I just though, ach! I might as well,

In praise of you, old pal, producer extraordinaire,

Produce a line or twa' of doggerel,

Because yon fateful day, this was your reply,

"Colin, why don't we do lunch-time theatre right here?

"How's about it? A Play, A Pie and A Pint?

"Come on, Colin, say, "Aye"!

"Yes, we'll just tell the story, not necessarily loud but clear.

"Won't show the audience where we're going,

"Just take them there by telling the story,

"Letting them in."

"We'll go, "Are we sitting comfortably? Then let us begin.""

APPLAUSE

The main thing being unwell has brought home to me,

is what a lucky man I am.

APPLAUSE

Stop it!

That's quite enough!

I've had the best job in theatre in Scotland for a long time.

I've been lucky in my marriage

and having a wonderful son.

I just have this damn complaint of which there is currently no cure,

and I refuse to let it define me.

APPLAUSE DROWNS OUT SPEECH

Gramsci, the Italian socialist, said a great thing.

He said, "Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will,"

and I've always felt that's a very good attitude to life,

to be aware intellectually of the problems,

but to have the will to beat them.