Did you originally want to direct as well as an act?
My life’s been a bit more random than that. I never thought of acting at all. I went to art school for four years and
when I thought about the future, all I knew was that I didn’t want to teach: I just didn’t have the skills for it.
Then suddenly, in my final year, all my friends were applying to teacher training college and I thought, "What on
earth am I going to do?"
Now I never went to the theatre, but a classmate of mine often did and she told me about a course in stage management
and design at the RSAMD. I applied and I got in.
But even then I didn’t make the jump to acting. Nobody I knew had anything to do with that kind of life.
So you began as a stage designer?
Despite my early training as an artist, I found myself doing more stage management than stage design. As I saw more of
what goes on in the theatre and watched the actors I began to feel that stage management wasn’t enough for me.
How did you begin to act?
I joined Theatre Workshop in the 70’s. This was a multi-arts team. It was in the early days of Scottish street
theatre. We’d do events, community shows etc. I began to do a bit of performing and I got a taste for it. But I said
to myself "I’m an artist! I’m an artist!" and so I left to become a community artist in Cumbria at the
Brewery Arts Centre.
They imported a small theatre company who I began to work with and my underlying wish to perform became increasingly
strong. I did begin to perform with them and loved it. I felt that I ought to resign my position as community artist and
when I did, they offered me a job as an actor instead!
What was the name of this company?
Pocket Theatre. I was with them for three years and I got the best training any actor could have. We were doing
small-scale touring productions – new plays, classics, devised shows – all out of the back of a van. You couldn’t
do it now.
You formed your own company after that?
Yes I formed Communicado with Gerry Mulgrew and Robert Pickavance, whom I had worked with at Theatre workshop and
Pocket. Again we used to tour all over Scotland, to packed halls – Ullapool, Achiltibuie, places like that.
[The first production we did was The House with the Green Shutters
In those days, you could only get one TV channel in the highlands and people were keen for more entertainment, more
choice. Since TV hit the highlands in the 1980’s the audience for touring theatre has almost gone: although companies
like 7:84 still tour.
Did you begin to direct with Communicado?
I realise now that as an actor I was always directing within the company. I was always aware of the production as a
whole and not just my part in it. In a company like Communicado, the director (Gerry Mulgrew) has the vision but the
process of developing the play is very collaborative.
This isn’t the case with Rep of course, where the actor is a hired hand. You work with a director and actors who you
may not know. Then you’re just hired to do your job and you get on with it. That used to frustrate me. I like to work
collaboratively.
And now you have your own company – v.amp?
I set up v.amp to do the Tramway show (Burning Bright by John Steinbeck). I worked with the designer and I brought in
the team including 2 Aerial Artists. It was a very visual show but what you get out of the show depends on the people
you work with.
What precipitated your move into film?
Did I say earlier that my career has never been planned?
I was getting frustrated with the roles I was being offered: if you don’t hit the Big Time by a certain age, you find
yourself down the food chain. It’s all finance.
How did you get started?
I wrote a couple of short films and put them in for Scottish Screen’s Tartan Shorts but didn’t get short-listed. But
I was invited to attend Scottish Screen’s Opening Shots programme for new writers. That encouraged me to keep going.
Producer Julie Fraser, whom I met at Opening Shots, introduced me to a new writer – Colin – and we hit it off
creatively.
Colin and I had a script short-listed for Cineworks and then our film Nan was selected for the Newfoundland Scheme.
Nan has been described as "a tenderly truthful but totally unsentimental piece about a
young mother dying of cancer who extracts a promise from her husband that he will contact her estranged mother to help
look after their two young sons.I remember the wig Una MacLean wore in Nan.
(Laughs) Una is a fantastic actress and she’s slowly getting more recognised. Because she does comedy, she’s been
put into this box labelled "variety and panto" but she was a dramatic actress before that.
Was she in Communicado’s Ines de Castro with you?
Yes, she was the nurse. As an actress she is always moving and truthful. She surprised a new generation who had written
her off with that.
Back to the wig – and where did you get her cardies?
(Laughs) That mohair one? Out of Oxfam I think! When I asked her to do the part I warned her there’s nothing glamorous
about this role at all. And she just went for it!
Of the Newfoundland films, I thought Nan was the most cinematic.
It had very little dialogue. We tell the story visually through the characters. I look at a film script with a
director’s eye.
How did you as director, influence the script for Nan?
Hmm, in discussion with Colin, we changed the ending and made some cuts. The essence of the story remained the same but
we shaped some of it differently. Some things needed heightening.
I am not one of these directors who wants to put "A Film By" in the credits. I don’t want to take the
writer’s story away from them. How can a film be "By" anyone? It doesn’t make sense to me: there are so
many people contributing. But the director (and often the producer) is the one person who’s there from the beginning
with the script, until the film is done and dusted and you can do no more with it.
The budget for the Newfoundland films is tight. Did you shoot on film?
No way: The budget was £45,000, so we shot on DV. We begged, borrowed and stole to get that film made. Colin and I
worked Nan for a year. We didn’t manage to pay ourselves and no one really made much money out of it. But if you have
a good script you find that you can get a good team willing to sign up to make the film. I had a fantastic team and
being behind the camera was a great experience.
Your Tartan Short "Tangerine" has just premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival.
It’s a story based around the Forth Railway bridge.
We shot in the first week of May and we had fantastic weather. In the film, the bridge looks just beautiful! The way the
sun hits it at a certain time of the day, it just glows tangerine. In some scenes of the film it looks so incredible
you’d think it was a backdrop. We were so lucky as the next week the haar rolled in and the bridge vanished for days
on end.
Everybody in Scotland loves that bridge.
We used a house in North Queensferry belonging to a lovely man called Bob Cubin, who’s a local historian. He was a
fount of stories about the bridge. From his garden, you look right down the length of the bridge over to South
Queensferry. We used his bedroom, his living room and his garden. His whole house was covered with pictures of the
bridge
And "Tangerine" is about a man who’s spent his life painting it.
Yes – up there in all weather’s with his bucket of orange paint. For forty years. And then he has to retire,
and he doesn’t want to, because the bridge has been his life – almost his mistress. But here he is, sitting at home
with his wife, no hobbies, no friends outside work, and he doesn’t know what do do with himself and she doesn’t know
what to do with him either. Forty years of parallel lives.
This sounds like my Dad.
I think retirement is a big, big thing for Scottish men of that age. And for the women married to them too. And people
don’t know how to talk about the ordinary deep things in life.
In Scotland?
Maybe everywhere outside of America! Jerry Springer – my God!
Relationships after retirement – there’s a bigger story there.
How did you find the move to directing film?
Well, Obviously I’m interested in different things than some 22-year old guy fresh out of film school. But people
crave different stories.
How does your theatre background help?
People can be a bit "sniffy" about a theatrical background.
I don’t mean to be dismissive, but if you’re 22 and straight our of film school – what do you know about character
and stories?
After 25 years in the theatre that’s what I do know about – character and story. And I’ve always had a very visual
way of directing and seeing a story.
You said you like to work collaboratively – how does that work in the making of a film?
I work with the writer. Although Colin was upset with "Nan" and "Tangerine" where we had to cut
things, I absolutely wanted to fulfil his idea of the script. I didn’t want to take it away from him. So the story
comes from the writer.
Character very much depends on casting and that’s my job as director.
The look of the film and the design of the scenes is also my job – in conjunction with my team – the director of
photography, Production Designer, assistant director and so on. They have skills I don’t have.
What are your hopes for "Tangerine"?
A production of a play only lives in your mind. When I did "Burning Bright" at the Tramway – it was a huge
effort - months of work and a great triumph. The reviews were spectacular, the audience said they’d never forget it:
but after the ‘curtain falls’ that’s it – it’s over and gone.
I hope "Tangerine" will have a life after it is shown on television. I’d like to see it play at Festivals
around the world.
I
talked to Nigel Smith, producer of the Tartan Short "Cry for Bobo" and he stressed
the importance of making sure a film gets seen, not just made.
That’s the key thing – getting the film distributed.
The producer is so important. There are loads of films in development, fewer get made and even fewer get seen. A good
producer will make sure the film gets seen. If a small film doesn’t take off it doesn’t get the chance to build. The
costs of prints, marketing, posters are huge.
What are your plans for the future?
I’ll shortly be playing Juno in "Juno and the Paycock" and I’m appearing in "Playboy o the Western
World".
I am very, very keen to get more experience behind the camera. Colin and I have other ideas for films and are working on
an idea for a feature. I’d love to do some directing for television as well as move up to directing a feature.
How was Tangerine received at the festival?
There was a great reponse to ‘tangerine’- people found it very moving, very human and funny. – I think all ages
can relate to it – either through their own personal experience or because of someone they know
Where can Netribution readers see "Tangerine"?
It will be broadcast on BBC Scotland later in year – but I don’t know the date yet – either October or November. I
hope it may get distributed with a feature – that’d be excellent and of course go to festivals.
Copyright © Netribution Ltd 1999-2002 by morna findlay photos courtesy of communicado & v.amp in edinburgh
Tangerine
Reviewed by Nic O
Some people cope well with retirement. They take their carriage clock, party with mates from work and set about finding
themselves a new and thrilling hobby, or even a second career. And some don't.
In Tangerine, we meet a painter on the Forth Bridge (a bridge that - myth would have it - is so big that it is always
being painted) who, having just retired, is at a loss how to spend his spare time. As a consequence his relationship
with his wife becomes increasingly strained.
With practically no dialogue, but some very nice images of the Forth Bridge, this is a pleasant, low-key, quietly
romantic piece, which holds back at first, building to a much-needed release.
Lovely.
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Shining Souls
First performed in an earlier version by the Traverse Theatre at 1996 Edinburgh Festival Fringe..with
Alison Peebles
as Ann.
Jointly awarded the 2003 Critics in Scotland Award For Best
Production.
Playwright -
Chris Hannan
Director -
Alison Peebles
Designer -
Jacqui Gunn
Lighting Designer
- Paul Sorley
Sound Designer
- Paddy Cuneen
Assistant Director
- Steve Mann
Company -
V.amp productions co-produced with Tron Theatre Company
Cast
- Dave Anderson as Minister, Paul Blair as Charlie, Matt Castello as Billy 2, Kathryn Howden as Ann, Isabelle Joss as
Mandy, Billy McColl as Prophet John, Davy McKay as Max, Una McLean as Nanette, Rod Matthew as Billy 1 and Julie Wilson
Nimmo as Margaret Mary.
Venue
- Tron Theatre
http://www.tron.co.uk/
0141 552 4267
In converted church in Trongate
Glasgow.
Reviewer
- Thelma Good
Where souls shimmer and actors shine.
Everyone loves a wedding especially Glaswegian Ann, Kathryn Howden, she's marrying Billy today but which one? The one
she slept with last night or the one who arrives in kilt and silver buttoned jacket?
Rod Matthew's Billy 1, is the more together of the two. He can speak honeyed words. Matt Castello's Billy 2 is the
nearest a man comes to a dumb beast and still get kisses.
Daughter Mandy, the only one of Ann's children still choosing to live. Played by Isabelle Joss she's a gorgeous Goth and
starting to weave her own web even though she's gone Christian now.
Max, a great wee *nyaff performance by Davy McKay, is in the company of dreamer Charlie, always firing off barely
fuelled fantasy rockets Paul Blair gives Charlie the heady charm of a sometimes successful con-merchant. He tells his
wife Margaret Mary, Julie Wilson Nimmo, a tale to open her purse. Finding it come true, he fetches up in the ^Barras for
a suit where Ann, the Billys and Mandy have gone to get a wardrobe.
But Ann's a kind of male fly paper. She attracts more of them to her side as her wedding day goes on. There's Charlie
who's just passing by and Prophet John, Billy McColl, a deranged evangelist. He's looked after by his gentle follower
Nanette, Una McLean on top form.
Director Alison Peebles has completed the copper bottomed cast with Dave Anderson as the harassed minister up since the
early hour coping with Glasgow's gutted community separated by flyovers and motorways. This is a cast of damned fine
Scottish actors in parts which are demanding and sometimes complex, each one rises to their challenge.
Shining Souls - V.amp Productions with Tron Theatre Co.
Paul Blair as Charlie
© Kevin Low 2003
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Hannan has revised script since its 1996 premiere. These changes strengthening what was already a play of layers and
fascination. It's as universal as Michel Tremblay's A Solemn Mass Under A Full Moon In Summer - but orchestrated for
those lost from faith. It illuminates ordinary lives full of searing tragedy. Lives where we yearn for more than a pint
in the pub or a fumbled frolic after a film, yet fear to. Hannan's characters seek meanings, carrying fragments of
faith, believing in intuition, their speech frequently laced with religious language used in striking ways.
Spanning both realism and surrealism, aided by Paul Sorley's lighting and Jacqui Gunn's multi-levelled set, this play
reflects chaotic, very human lives. Creating times of joyous, unrestrained laughter and profound silence it draws us to
the light of the play in this production, where souls shimmer and actors shine.
© Thelma Good 14 February 2003. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com.
*nyaff - A Scots word usually for a shifty young man.
^The Barras - Barrowlands East of Glasgow Cross and the Tron is a place where lots of things can be bought off barrows,
stalls and back of vans etc, it has been there for nearly a century.
Shining Souls; Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
The hopeless, the helpless and the absolutely hilarious
(Filed: 17/08/1996)
The two in-house productions this festival (there's also a slew of visiting shows) are among the best new plays I've
seen all year. Both are by young Scottish dramatists but there could hardly be a starker contrast in their mood.
Amid the bewildering sprawl of the Edinburgh Fringe there is at least one centre of excellence: the Traverse. It helps,
of course, that this is a year-round operation, housed in one of the most excitingly designed and welcoming new theatre
buildings in Britain. But its artistic director, Ian Brown - who, sad to report, is leaving after this year's festival -
also has a marvellously discerning eye for fine new writing.
The two in-house productions this festival (there's also a slew of visiting shows) are among the best new plays I've
seen all year. Both are by young Scottish dramatists but there could hardly be a starker contrast in their mood.
Chris Hannan's Shining Souls is a joy. It's not often that you find yourself in a packed theatre at 11 o'clock in the
morning being swept along by a great wave of hilarity, but that is at least part of the experience here. Hannan's
generous-hearted drama is set among the hopeless, the helpless, the impoverished and the aimlessly drifting in
present-day urban Scotland. It sounds like a recipe for terminal depression, but Hannan has a marvellous gift for
comedy, and endows his large, incisively drawn cast of characters with often blissfully funny demotic dialogue.
There is an almost Jonsonian richness to the characterisation: the confused Charlie, for instance, is a con man who
becomes so absorbed in the yarns he is spinning that he is moved to tears. Meanwhile Ann (a lovely performance from
Alison Peebles) is due to get married during the single hectic day in which the action is set; the only trouble being
that she can't decide which of her two suitors to choose. The fact that they are both called Billy leads to some
brilliantly developed running gags.
Unlike Jonson's harsh comedies, however, there is a depth of compassion to the writing. It slowly emerges that nine
years earlier Ann's young twin sons committed suicide. At the end, she has to decide whether she can contemplate even
the possibility of happiness again. Almost everyone in the play is looking for love and certainty in their lives, and
almost all of them are capable of instinctive acts of kindness.
Hannan's achievement is to combine hilarity with heartache, to detect glimpses of spiritual grace in lives of desperate
deprivation. Sometimes the gears grind awkwardly as he shifts the mood, but the ambition and achievement of the play are
never in doubt. In Ian Brown's satisfyingly detailed, superbly acted production, in which even the smallest parts come
to quirky life, the souls of Hannan's characters really do seem to shine.
©
copyright of Telegraph group Limited 2003
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The Award For The Best Theatre Production
was shared between two productions.
Shining Souls,
directed by Alison Peebles and co-produced by her company, V.amp Productions and the Tron Theatre in Glasgow,
shared the top award with
Scrooge
,
directed and designed by Kenny Miller, the 2002 Christmas show at the Citizens' Theatre, Glasgow.
Full list of 2003 Awards.
The Script's history
.
The original script was developed by NT and The Royal Court and premiered by the Traverse in 1996 and was published then
by Nick Hern Books.
The 2003 version of the script is published by Nick Hern Books too and is available from the Tron and book shops.
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Two theatre
productions share accolade
FIONA STEWART Theatre critics announced the winners of their first awards for the best theatre
productions in Scotland last night
A panel of newspaper critics, including The Scotsman writer Joyce McMillan, announced the accolade of "best
production" would be shared between
'Shining Souls' directed by Alison Peebles at the Tron Theatre a
nd Kenny Miller’s production of Scrooge at The Citizens’ Theatre, both in Glasgow.
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BURNING BRIGHT, TRAMWAY, GLASGOW.
"Turning her back on the iconic wall created for Peter Brook when the former tram depot first became a theatre,
director Alison Peebles and designer Jacqueline Gunn have invented Tramway anew. As a post-industrial space, never
has it looked so perfect, or seemed so appropriate. This debut of her V.amp company is both in the raw and highly
sophisticated. Gunn's installation uses rather than disguises the space with bags of water like fairground
goldfish trophies and sacks of earth like counterweights hanging from the girders. The elemental nature of the
staging is ever-present in the work of aerialists Phillippa Vafadari and Jonothan Campbell, the dirt of the farm in part
two and the unseen danger of the water around the ship setting of the conclusion.
The costumes for the quartet o actors are similarly straightforward. Quintessentialy circus for the first part and
self-evidently of the land and the sea for two and three. Continuing the theme is Andrew Poppy's soundtrack from the
laughter of an unseen crowd to a collage of Appalachian banjo plucking and clanging industrial percussion. But it
is visually that the piece is most stunning, with the aerialists used sparingly to illustrate the motivations and fates
of the characters.
Theatrically, the show is a complete triumph. But while Peebles has made a fine thing of John Steinbeck's play,
I'm not sure it is the neglected classic she believes. For all its poetry, and despite some long speeches, I was
left with the feeling that the controversial subject matter - fertility, surrogacy and the power of the sexes - was not
fully explored. Devotees of soap operas might feel that many of the same issues are meat and drink to
five-days-a-week
scriptwriters.
But if Burning Bright does not have the impact of an Arthur Miller and its conclusion lurches from melodramatic
inevitability to mystical optimism, it has hardly stood in the way of Peebles and her company. Go see and absorb
the spectacle with all your senses." Keith Bruce
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