- -~ '1 < there. from troubled parents to dodgy holidays on the Clyde. The second part of this trilogy. Cutting a Rug (1979) is concerned with what happened earlier the same day. in The Slab Buys as a springboard for violent and often very funny action. Still Life (1982). perhaps Byrne's finest play. moves the characters a couple of decades on and features. as so much of Byrne‘s work does. a death as the starting point for an examination of past decisions. actions and passions. the only means we have of coming to terms with ourselves today.
And so much of Byrne's work. from Normal Service (I979) a farce centred around a Scottish television station‘s attempts to cover the general election of 1964. to Colqulimm and McBride (1992). the story of two Glasgow artists who hit the big time in pre-war London. but then declined into alcoholism in the post war world. and on to his 6()s-set adaptation of Chekov‘s Uncle Vanyu. Uncle Varick (2(X)4) is concemed with turning points in history on a bigger. political scale. Not that Byrne is at all concemed i with the chronicling of history itself. but rather
the effect of mighty upheavals on individuals. In li’riter's Cramp ( I977). we meet Francis Seneca McDade. this time of posher stock than most of Byrne‘s characters. an affected Anglo-Scot whose personal history once again traces the history of our times. This time. the pure mediocrity of this Scottish writer and artist is explored as part of a farcical exploration of pre and post war history. a similar era to that of Colqulzoim uml McBryc/e. Again the piece starts with a death and looks back.
No surprise. then. that Byrne‘s cult television series. a funny but very dark piece should also start with a funeral. this time of the Big Jazzer. a semi-legendary lead singer for rock band. The Majestics.
I asked Byrne about death and our need to reconstruct the present through the past in his plays. suggesting that death was very much part of his work. ‘I hadn't noticed it myself. but now that you mention it. that's very true. Death is so much a part of life and it's always with us'. he says. ‘There are deaths in almost all my plays.‘ he adds. down the line from the NTS' Aberdeen
suzr «mu-:5 I
Who?
Who? Suzi Kettles. who's known Danny since they went to art school.
Played by
Dawn Steele. star of TV shows Sea of Souls and Monarch of the Glen. and featured in BBC drama The Key
What’s Suzl’s story? Dawn Steele explains: ‘Her and Danny have known each other since they went to art school. so they go back years. She's quite an intelligent. well brought up art SChOOl sort of girl.
slightly posh, kind of West End of Glasgow. She’s the one who's quite straight. a bit more responsible than the rest of the band. She
really only goes on tour
so she can keep an eye on Danny. She's a witty dry kind of
girl. who can hold her own with the boys. Her past is a lot to do with the way she is now. She's fiercely independent. because she's been married and
suffered domestic abuse. but she can't help the way she feels about Danny. There's a dark side to this character. as there is in the plot generally. We're trying to make her a bit cooler than the Emma Thompson verSion.'
Who played Suzi in the TV
series?
Emma Thompson
What happened to Emma
Thompson next?
What didn't happen to her? Thompson's film career took off soon after Tutti Frutti was screened. and she
won her first Oscar in Howard '3 End in 1992. Thompson went on to Win a second Oscar for writing a film adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. She has also appeared in any number of less serious roles in films such as Love, Actual/y and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
4; lea/«x
20 THE LIST 7—21 Sep 2006
rehearsal studios ‘And since this one has a death at the very start. that dictates a lot of the narrative line. I've never analysed it really. None of these things are intentional on my part. it's just you feel its rightness. l have no idea where these things come from. I find I need about 2() years before I know what they‘re about.’
He points. though. to the narrative structure as an instigator of this death imagery. but in the case of Tutti lr'ruttt' there was also a pragmatic issue concerning the casting of the piece that dictated the change: ‘When I sat down to write the television series. I only had eight weeks to write six episodes. I was given a particular star to write it around. but I said I didn’t want to do that. I couldn‘t. and they said. “Who do you want to nominate. then?" I said Robbie Coltrane. I knew that he’d be younger than the band by 25 years. since they were celebrating their golden jubilee. So that dictated the storyline — the older brother had to die. and the younger brother had to come from somewhere else.‘ Byrne says.
As to the past as metaphor and motive in his work. Byrne rightly identifies the suspicious.
EDDIE CLOCKERTY
Eddie Clockerty. the manager beset by problems.
Played by John Ramage.
What’s Eddie’s story? John Ramage explains: ‘After the Big Jazzer dies.
Eddie‘s involved in constant shenanigans to get him replaced. He's quite hardbitten. because there's not
much life left in the band. but all his effOrts are foiled by his personal aSSistant who is determined to do no work.
He's really a kind of gangster who never QUIle manages
to pull his scam off — he saw the success that peOple like Brian Epstein had in his day. but he's never gomg to
get anywhere near that. He and his shady partner have
tried to engineer the band's way up the charts wrth all kinds of crockery, but they're Just incompetent' Who played Eddie in the TV series?
Richard Wilson.
What happened to Richard Wilson next? Although he‘s best known for his portrayal of Victor
Meldrew in One Foot in the Grave. Wilson also boasts a distinguished film career (How to Get Ahead in
Advertising, The Man Who Knew Too Little) and is an accomplished theatre director too.