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This article, which was originally published in the Spectrum section of Scotland on Sunday
on 10th April 2005, is reproduced on Land-Care with the kind permission
of the author and the newspaper.

Filed 15 Apr 05
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BACK in the 1950s, John Stewart, a Glasgow-born theatre director, had a mad idea which had all the hallmarks of disaster about it. He would found a theatre in the Highlands as a deliberate alternative to the urban theatre of the Central Belt. It would present a repertory programme through the summer, offering audiences the chance of seeing six plays in as many days. And, because there was no ready-made building to accommodate it, the theatre would start life in a tent.

And so it did. I remember it in its early days, with the canvas flapping in the wind, and every seat filled for performances of classic theatre by Shaw, Barrie, Bridie, Ibsen, Chekhov and, of course, the ‘Scottish lay’ - all tailored to the tastes and enthusiasms of visitors and natives alike, who flocked to Scotland’s ‘theatre in the hills’. More than 50 years on, the Pitlochry Festival Theatre has not only survived the tent, it has vindicated the vision of Stewart and his stalwart partner, Kenneth Ireland. Now housed in a fine, purpose-built theatre overlooking the Tummel river, it still presents six plays every summer, and it continues to draw audiences in numbers that are the envy of most other Scottish venues. Last year, it put on 181 performances, and filled 60% of its 544-seat auditorium, making it - if you exclude Christmas shows - the most successful single theatre in Scotland, in terms of audience figures. It has been the training ground for some of our best-known actors, it has given a wide variety of directors the chance to experiment and it has broadened its repertoire to include cutting-edge modern drama as well as familiar mainstream work. It is a unique phenomenon - no other theatre in Britain attempts this extraordinary turnover of plays.

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Yet today, on the eve of its latest season, the theatre faces a crisis every bit as challenging as the one that confronted Stewart all those years ago. It could, like all good drama, end in triumph or tragedy. If it comes out right, Pitlochry will find itself on the international map, a festival theatre of world standard, comparable perhaps to Canada’s enormously successful Shaw Festival at Niagara on the Lake. If it goes wrong, it could begin the slow decline towards eventual closure.

I joined John Durnin, the theatre’s artistic director, in the crumbling and cavernous shed that serves as the theatre’s rehearsal space. He is taking the cast through the trial scene in To Kill a Mocking Bird, Harper Lee’s classic story of racial prejudice in the American south. Jonathan Coote is playing the lawyer Atticus Finch, the role made famous by Gregory Peck, asking the low-key questions that will break down the prosecution case. Martyn James, a Pitlochry regular, is the no-nonsense judge; Richard Addison is Bob Ewell, the redneck bigot. It is ten in the morning, but already the tension in the court-room is palpable. Pitlochry, for the moment, is Alabama.

Each of these actors, drawn from all over the UK, will be playing in most or all of the other plays - Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons, Ayckbourn’s Things We Do for Love, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Dolly West’s Kitchen, by Frank McGuinness, and Treasure Island. They have to learn the lines from each, switch from 1930s America to 16th-century England in the course of an afternoon, perhaps even rehearse four different plays in a day. They relish it. "I have never been so stretched as an actor," says Addison.

James, who has been coming back to Pitlochry for 30 years, wouldn’t miss it for the world. He and the others were picked after applications from more than 2,000 actors were received. This was whittled down to 300, then finally to the 18 who’ll be living and working at Pitlochry throughout the summer. "Working on four shows simultaneously seems lunatic," says Durnin.

In this, his second year, he is determined that Pitlochry should aspire to the highest production standards, and believes that when the new National Theatre comes into being they could collaborate on work to mutual advantage. "We tackle big, rich stories," he says. "The mix, scale and appeal of what we do makes Pitlochry unique. If it wasn’t here, it would leave a tremendous hole."

Nikki Axford, the theatre’s chief executive, who came here from the Lyceum, agrees; but for her, it is Pitlochry’s success that poses the gravest problem. Two years ago it became an all-year venue, producing a full-scale winter programme of shows, concerts, dance and literature. It has launched a popular season of arts activities, it does education work, runs a gallery and a restaurant, and has turned the ground next door into an ‘explorer’s garden’.

The result has been a huge boost to the town and its surrounding area. One calculation is that the theatre, Pitlochry’s biggest employer, injects some £7 million into the local economy. All this has been achieved without any increase in its core funding, and as a result, staff, space and resources are at breaking point. It gets just £360,000 from the Scottish Arts Council, and £160,000 from Perthshire Council - minimal support considering the scale of what it does. "We have the highest audience of any theatre, but the lowest public subsidy," says Axford.

To survive it has to expand. The company has ambitions to build a studio theatre and create proper rehearsal space, all of which would allow it to increase the range and quality of the work it does. "We want to operate on an international level, to be an international destination," Axford says. "It is not an unrealistic ambition. The studio theatre would give us the opportunity of putting on ten plays a year, rather than six, and offering more choice. Above all, it would allow us to move forwards - without that, I believe we could founder."

To achieve its aims, the theatre will need to raise an initial £600,000, and a longer-term £5 million, but the staff here are quite determined to do it. But without the revenue funding to support it, the whole venture could fail. Axford calculates that the theatre needs an extra £200,000 a year to allow it to take on the additional staff and acquire the resources to see it through.

So far, however, neither arts council nor local authority shows any inclination to offer additional support. Culture ministers have had little to say about it. The Cultural Commission, which is examining the future of the arts in Scotland, has not visited Pitlochry. Because the arts establishment in Scotland is essentially urban, it is regarded as out-of-the-way, and even irrelevant.

"There is a perception that we’re a rural theatre, catering for middle-aged audiences, and that therefore we can’t be any good," says Axford.

And it is wrong, too. What Pitlochry does, in its idiosyncratic way, is what everyone in the arts wants to see developing - it builds audiences, it works closely with its community, it helps educate local children, and it provides work and experience for actors and directors alike. Without it the economy of the town and the surrounding area would suffer immeasurably.

All this qualifies Pitlochry as a national treasure. It’s time for ministers and arts administrators alike to take another look at the theatre in the hills and give it the help it needs to realise its vision.

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Linklater's Scotland - Pitlochry Theatre

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Columnist, Soctland on Sunday

Filed 15 Apr 05
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Linklater's Scotland - Pitlochry Theatre

Magnus Linklater

Columnist, Soctland on Sunday

Filed 15 Apr 05 ©magnus linklater

©Magnus Linklater

Further Reading

Filed 15 Apr 05
©magnus linklater