Trying to avoid a cultural wasteland called Scotland...

There was a playwrights’ party at the Festival.

There always is. On the last Monday.

And this Festival’s party was special, the invitation said, because there was lots to celebrate.

The anniversary of the traverse Theatre.

The anniversary of the Scottish Society of Playwrights.

The anniversary of Playwrights’ Studio Scotland.

I forget the numbers, but they were certainly significant.

But I didn’t think we had anything to celebrate.

Everything we gained back in the eighties we’ve lost.

Every opportunity we’ve created has been squandered.

And almost all of us have had our careers destroyed.

And almost every young playwright has had their career destroyed before it’s even begun.

Not because we’re especially bad: it’s just the opportunities aren’t there for our careers to develop.

So: nothing to celebrate. Except perhaps our absurd obstinacy:

Our absurd obstinacy in sticking with a dying art form.

A form that’s dying not because there’s no demand for it but because the authorities are allowing it to bleed to death.

So I didn’t want to celebrate. But I went anyway. Because I knew there’d be people there i’m very fond of and greatly respect.

All of us grizzled survivors of years of attrition…

And how are you doing?

I’m doing very well thank you.

Because I’ve stopped thinking of myself a theatre writer.

I was touring US for a month and it even made a bit of money…

Because I was operating outside theatre structures.

And I’ve been doing a show at the Fringe, which I’m enjoying, and haven’t lost any money and may even make a tiny bit…

Because I’m working outside theatre structures.

And all very true, but not very tactful in the circumstances, especially when talking to dear Peter Arnott, a fine playwright of my generation who has dedicated, and continues to dedicate, years of his life to defending theatre…

And then I forgot about it all until a couple of weeks later when dear Peter Arnott sent out a link to an open play call for work about Narratives For Planet Earth, a call made by a Belgian theatre company.

And I told myself not to be silly, and forget about it…

But couldn’t. Of course I couldn’t. And late that night I was feverishly scribbling out ideas, laughing out aloud for the sheer joy of it.

And then next day a letter came from Australia, with an invitation to have a think and a dream about a play I’m co-writing with a young trans writer for the Midsumma Festival in January…

And the same thing happens. Such intense excitement. Such joy…

And I think

Fuck

Shit

Bugger 

Damn

I still love theatre.

And I keep working at it as best I can, and I refuse to feel sad I can’t work in Scotland, because this country’s going to hell in a handcart

And I refuse, I refuse to be silenced inside it….

Last night I was out for supper with friends, and somebody said

Do you remember that “As You Like It” in the Lyceum?

And I did, and felt a huge deep pang of sadness, because the way things are I’ll never see any Shakespeare in the Lyceum again.

And I realised how much I miss Shakespeare.

And that I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten I missed him.

And how did we get here? How did we get to this dismal place?

I remember a puppet play I wrote years ago, in 1994, a play called ‘Dreaming’ which I dedicated to my daughters.

It was a coming of age story about a girl and it almost bankrupted the company who put it on.

It was before writing serious plays for children and young people was a thing and I think their audiences were expecting Pinocchio.

Any how there’s a nightmare sequence towards the end of it that somehow seems to prefigure what’s happening to Scottish culture…

And it goes like this:

“I'm walking

I'm slowly and silently walking

Walking through a dead land

The fruit is rotting on the tree

There are no birds singing

Nothing moves

Nothing will ever move

Nothing will ever move again

All the windows are open

All the windows sag open

All the windows and doors

And the only sound

Is the windows

Banging in the wind.

And I walk

And I walk

And I walk through the country of the dead

and the dead lie where death has caught them

Women.

Young men.

Old men old women

children. babies.

babies and their mothers!

Who could do this?

And there’s a child.

 A child lying as if she were asleep.

A child

A child who opens her eyes and speaks

‘It didn't happen suddenly

It wasn't a flash of fire from the sky

Or a machine exploding on the earth

It didn't happen the way we'd been prepared 

The way that we'd prepared for our defence.

It happened bit by bit

Birds began falling out of the sky

But one by one so no-one noticed they had gone.

And then we started losing colours

All the deep reds and the indigos

Bit by bit and one by one

And no-one, ever, noticed them go.

And everyone stopped listening to each other But little by little

And bit by bit

And so we never noticed what we'd lost

And when we started not to feel things

And when we started not to think things

No-one noticed because we'd lost...
Because we'd lost the capacity to notice

And when we forgot

We'd soon forgotten what it was

We had forgot

And when we died

mostly we didn't notice that we'd died.’

And I'm summoning up all my strength

All the strength of my brothers and sisters still alive

The strength of my sisters and brothers

the strength of all the dead!

Don't settle for the easy option

don't settle for the "there is no other way"

Don't believe them when they tell you

human nature's just like that

and things will never change

don't be afraid remember kindness

its kindness that banishes all fear.”

Kindness is always a beginning, and there’ll be kindness at the Rally tomorrow

But we’ll need courage too

Courage to let go the past and move forward to a new way of doing things

A new way to make things happen

A new way of making theatre.

I wish I could be there. But arthritis and rallies don’t mix.

The in my ankles means I can’t walk any distance or stand for any length of time.

So I won’t be there:

Bu hopefully I’ll be creating.

And that, too, is an important kind of resistance….