The Portrait Gallery will take centre-stage this spring as the National Theatre of Scotland explores their collection through the written word and performance in Dear Scotland. Read more …
In this unique work, twenty of the country’s leading writers will pen short, sharp monologues inspired by the Gallery’s celebrated portraits which will be performed as a promenade theatre piece, staged within the galleries. Confirmed writers include; AL Kennedy, David Greig, Jackie Kay, Janice Galloway and Louise Welsh.
These 20 monologues have been curated into an afterhour’s tour of the building with two separate tours being created around them. One set of 10 (Tour A) will be performed one night from 7.30pm onwards, with the next set (Tour B) the following evening, so the only way to see them all is to come twice and collect the set.
Tour A: It is fitting that the SNPG is the venue for a nation’s reflection on the big picture. While nobody knows what the dead or departed really would say, these imagined epistles to the nation from fleshed out ghosts and distant Scots that are well worth luggin in tae at this time of historical significance.
Tour B: The upcoming Referendum clearly prompted the development of ‘Dear Scotland’ and this is tackled head on by some of the writers, while the approaches of others are more oblique.
This excellently acted production by Catrin Evans and Joe Douglas turns a gallery full of establishment stuffed shirts into a place of radical provocation.
So, Dear Scotland, if you wish to be challenged and provoked, to see fine, fine acting interpreting the thoughtful words of your contemporary writers, words put into the mouths of twenty iconic characters from your past and present, make you haste to see this all-too-brief production.
The high concept brings paintings to startling life in the mausoleum atmosphere of the domineering gallery, but the politics might get in the way for some. There are no lifeboats here for floating voters. On the way out one Edinburgh patron turned to another and summed things up with the deathless remark, ‘it was very well organised.’
Dear Scotland imagines a wonderfully diverse series of letters from Scotland’s past to its present and future. It is, quite simply, an excellent idea, beautifully realised.
Robert Burns for Scottish independence in new play
Brian Ferguson and Andrew Whitaker, The Scotsman, 25/04/2014
First Look: Dear Scotland
Preview: Dear Scotland
Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh from Thursday April 24, 2014, until Saturday May 3, 2014. More info: www.nationalgalleries.org
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