with the disease, ‘wasn’t suitable for a family venue.’
‘A family venue!’ he says. ‘Well, I’m sorry, but all LGBT people come from and are part of families too. You can’t segregate us, look at us as though we’re sexualised independent beings with no contact with outside world. I’ve been the
quietly biting the political wire over six years at Glasgay!, and for the first time I’m going to go out there and say, we’re not taking this! They seem to be bowing down to a right-wing minority in the press, who question the council’s right to spend tax money on LGBT arts at all. You can’t stigmatise us like this any more.’
The ongoing funding has allowed the Glasgay! team to turn next year’s festival into a vehicle for responding to these issues. ‘We’ve had to become activists around our own work again. And that’s no bad thing; it galvanises us as a community. I’ve never had so many strong lesbian women standing in support of me. Next year, we want to take on institutions; particularly those institutions that want to attack us. Celebrate our positive identity but subvert it in ways that allows us to make social comment. Glasgay!’s still rolling. We’re not
going away.’
picks up from there. We also had the freedom to work closely with someone like Louise Welsh, to commission her to do something new, to bring in a director, Sam Rowe, who has done drama therapy with sex offenders, understands the character she’s created [in her new work Memory Cells] and who has filtered ideas into her head during the writing process. ‘That’s been a big mission of mine, to look at where we fit queer stories into these more mainstream dramas. How we knit together – or not, sometimes.’
While the choice of ‘family’ as a theme was established last year, there’s a particular, immediate poignancy about it now for Thomson. The day we meet, he’s just come back from installing Dani Marti’s exhibition Insideout in a new venue on Parnie Street, after Culture and Sport Glasgow withdrew three film works from the intended space in GoMA following high- profile outcry from right- wing pressure groups and certain corners of the media.
According to Thomson, one of the main objections was that the work, which features HIV positive men talking frankly about living
In Jesus, Queen of Heaven, Jo Clifford portrays the Second Coming as a transsexual woman
‘I’m amazed there’s been such a fuss about
this play. Everybody knows that Jesus empathised strongly with people that the respectable society of his time rejected – prostitutes, tax collectors, members of despised ethnic groups. I am sure if we had been around, he would also have made friends with us transsexuals. He said and did so many things that offended conventional and narrow- minded people then, as the idea of a transsexual portraying Jesus seems to offend them today. I feel very sad when I see Jesus’ name and sayings being used to justify repressive and intolerant sexual values. I think this betrays everything he stood for. So much of what he said is so full of wisdom, joy and compassion and I hope I can convey some of that in the play. As well as my pride in being the person I am.’ ■ Tron Theatre, Tue 3–Sat 7 Nov.
Grant Smeaton’s Bette/Cavett re-imagines one of the most candid US television meetings in
history ‘Dick Cavett was a bit of a phenomenon on American TV in the late 60s and throughout the 70s. He got huge TV audiences and big stars were throwing themselves at his feet to get on his show. I’ve always been a bit of a Bette Davis fan and I knew she had done a big interview with Cavett in 1971: I discovered it online and I was blown away! I just had to put it on stage. The 63-year-old Bette doesn’t have a movie or a book to sell – she’s just there to talk. And she talks! I’ve worked the interview into a one-hour performance with cuts to 1971 commercials and “during the break” scenarios. I play Bette and Mark Prendergast plays Dick. It’s been fantastic to work with verbatim text, and if there’s anywhere this can work, it’s Glasgay! 2009!’ ■ Tron Theatre, Tue 6–Sat 10 Oct.
Matthew McVarish was commissioned after the success of last year’s To Kill a
Kelpie
‘A Child Made of Love is a very different piece from anything I have ever written. Firstly, I didn’t write it myself. This play has been created and developed over a year with the actors who will be performing it. As associate artist with Poorboy theatre company, I have become very excited by the possibilities of collaboration and also, having worked as an actor as part of their ensemble for two years, I am convinced that a group of actors creating together on their feet in a room can produce work worthy of publishing. The story has grown with the actors. All I proposed was that we tell a story about hopeful gay dads who are about to give up trying when a child suddenly appears from nowhere. It has been a fascinating experience so far and I am confident the production will reflect that.’ ■ Tron Theatre, Tue 20–Sat 24 Oct.
Jackie Kay’s The Maw Broon Monologues present the viewpoint of Scotland’s most famous matriarch ‘Everyone in Scotland understands the Broons. They’re the quintessential Scottish family, so they’re an interesting mirror to hold up to ourselves in the 21st century, by using them to explore what’s happening politically, and in our society. Maw Broon is fun to play with. You can say quite dark, serious things through her, and also very funny things. My Maw Broon does things that the Maw Broon of the comics would never do: like going for colonic irrigation, or having an orgasm. She also has a black doppelganger, and both Maw Broons are joined onstage by [daughter] Daphne, played by Tom Urie in drag. Everyone’s had points in their family life where they’ve felt a bit lost, and my Maw Broon, at the beginning of this play, just wants there to be more to life than a stovie and an Irn Bru.’ ■ Tron Theatre, Tue 3–Sun 8 Nov.
24 Sep–8 Oct 2009 THE LIST 25