A Good Show

As I’m still in my theatrical adventures I have found myself thinking a lot about how and why I love theatre so much and also what my first formative theatrical experiences were. There were a few false starts: I suffered terror as a child at pantomime stars breaking the fourth wall and coming far too close to the audience and suffered a depressing night or two at the local amateur Operatic Society out of duty to one of the stars who seemed to be a friend of the family.

There have been many steps along the way but recently I recalled a conversation with my old friend Jim Taylor who was, for many years, the life force behind Dundee’s Gardyne Theatre which was attached to the college I attended. Jim was still there many years later when it opened as a stand alone venue. We worked on shows together back in the day and I’d enquire how particular visiting productions would be coming along. These shows could be Scottish Opera or Ballet through to local AmDram spectaculars.

Sometimes I’d wonder whether they would be to Jim’s taste. ‘Oh, it’s a good show,’ Jim would inform me. I liked that. It meant that the production’s achievement matched its ambition. That focus is still something which should be a maxim for any piece of performance; strive to make it a good show.

Disappearing Acts

If the pantomime and the Gondoliers made me want to bypass Thespia then the visiting players to our primary school had the opposite effect. Every year or so (it seemed) a group of travelling actors would set up on the stage of our school hall and perform a child friendly show for the school. The show was hugely entertaining, of course, but above and beyond that there was something fascinating about watching the company arrive, set up then disappear again at the end of the day. The idea that people got to do this exciting adventure for a living intrigued and fed my own imagination. At 68 years of age it still excites me that I don’t have a real job and get to appear and disappear on a regular basis.

Molly Tuttle

A few years ago our Nashville correpondent, Bill DeMaim recommended Molly Tuttle’s music to us. Bill, as I recall, had happened upon her while doing a little guitar research and in trying to find out how best to play acoustic with a flat pick stumbled across the online world of Molly. Her playing, without exaggeration, is prodigious. She started young and her musical stylings and repertoire continues to expand. As evidence of this her recent Grammy nominations for Americana album of the year are a follow on to her win in the Bluegrass category the year before. She’s also still very young. On this record the artwork on the sleeve tells the story of how alopecia has affected her since the early part of her life, which you will hear her talk about in a remarkably honest interview I recorded with her on her recent visit to Scotland. This conversation and songs from her current album So Long Little Miss Sunshine and earlier releases all form the second hour of this week’s Another Country. You can hear the whole show from five past eight on BBC Radio Scotland or on BBC Sounds this Tuesday evening. Do join me if you can.