Fringe show explores 'origin stories' of Connolly and Gray

The Herald Scotland

3 days ago

Writer and performer Alan Bissett will be stepping into the shoes of both Gray and Connolly in a show which will explore their 'origin stories.'
Read more:
When Billy Met Alasdair will look at the 'incredible challenges' they faced growing up in Glasgow.
The one-man show will explore the journeys they made before they met up 'as equals' at The Third Eye Centre in Glasgow when Connolly turned up at the launch of Lanark, the late writer and artist's best-known book, in 1981.
A photograph of Billy Connolly and the late Alasdair Gray taken more than 40 years ago has inspired a new Fringe show. (Image: George Oliver)
Connolly worked in the shipbuilding industry before deciding to pursue a career as a folk musician several years before focusing on stand-up comedy.
Gray, who studied at Glasgow School of Art, taught art in schools, painting murals for religious buildings and work as a scene painter for theatres. He wrote plays for radio, television and the stage while writing his epic novel Lanark.
Alan Bissett will be performing the Fringe show When Billy Met Alasdair. (Image: Alasdair Watson)
Bissett's show will also imagine the conversation the pair may have had at the launch of Lanark, which runs to more than 550 pages and is said to have taken Gray more than 30 years to complete.
The book had been recommended to Bissett, who published his debut novel nearly 25 years ago, when he was trying to get his writing career off the ground.
The writer and artist Alasdair Gray will be portrayed in a new Fringe show. (Image: NQ)
He told The Herald: 'Billy Connolly and Alasdair Gray have been massive inspirations and influences on me.
'I've always been a Billy Connolly fan. I think everybody in Scotland is. It goes right back to my childhood when the whole family used to watch his videos.
Billy Connolly will be portrayed in a new Fringe show, When Billy Met Alasdair. (Image: Glasgow International Comedy Festival)
'People kept telling me that if I wanted to be a writer I had to read Lanark. I was aware that it was a mountain that I had to climb. But once I got to the top the views were incredible. It really was a game-changer for me.
'I think every writer in Scotland can probably say they have been influenced by Alasdair in some way.
'He ploughed his own furrow. There was nobody else like him. He was an absolutely unique talent.
'I think people will be talking about Alasdair Gray in 200 or 300 years in the same way they talk about Robert Burns.'
Gray, who died in 2019, became one of Bissett's biggest influences, as the former teacher and labourer built a career writing short stories, novels and plays.
The photograph, by George Oliver, from the Lanark book launch was in Gray's personal collection for many years, before it was passed on to the writer Rodge Glass, who worked for Gray as his secretary.
Bissett, who became a friend of Glass, was given it as a birthday gift around 10 years ago and put it on display in his living room.
He recalled: 'I lived in the west end of Glasgow for around 10 years. You would see his work everywhere. It is very much part of the fabric of the city.
"People were aware that he painted, but it was only later in his life that people talked about him as one of the most incredible painters Scotland has ever produced. He is almost more well-known now as an artist that as a writer.
"Rodge would tell me all these stories about Alasdair. I used to say to him: 'I can't believe this is your job'.
'I would gaze at the photograph and wonder what Billy and Alasdair talked about. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall. It was always in my mind.
'Billy and Alasdair were both based in Glasgow. They might have known some of the same people and might have met socially before or after the photograph, but that is the only evidence that they ever met. That has really allowed me to fill in the gaps."
Bissett was on a visit to the official Alasdair Gray Archive in Glasgow when he suggested the possibility of a play based on the photograph to its custodian, Sorcha Dallas.
The idea became part of a joint project with the Glasgow Comedy Festival to ask writers and performers to create new work in response to Gray's life and work, with the project securing funding as part of the programme of events to mark 850 years since the city Glasgow secured 'burgh status.'
Comedy writers and performers Ashley Storrie, Christopher Macarthur-Boyd and Bissett staged 'scratch performances' at the comedy festival and Gray Day, the annual celebration of the writer and artist.
They were both staged at Oran Mor, the arts centre in the west end of Glasgow which has a famous ceilidh mural painted by Gray over several years.
Bissett said: 'I did a half an hour performance at Gray Day and the comedy festival, but it had a really good response and I felt it would have a been shame to leave it at that.
'I felt there was more in the story if I pulled the thread and that if I extended it I would have a Fringe show.
'I basically tell their origin stories in the play. It is really about their struggles. We think of them as titanic figures, masters of their genres and great success stories. But they faced incredible challenges in order to get there. We kind of forget that.
"I wanted to show just how much they both had to go through in order to get to the point where they meet as equals. The whole play builds towards that scene."
The Fringe show will also be performed at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, a stone's throw from the Waverley Bar, the historic pub which Connolly previously performed in as a folk singer, along with Gerry Rafferty, Barbara Dickson and The Corries.
Connolly is said to have been inspired to become an entertainer by a visit to the Fringe in the early 1960s before immersing himself in the folk music scene in Glasgow and forming the band The Humblebums with Rafferty.
Connolly became increasingly well known for his humorous introductions to songs and after The Humblebums broke up in 1971, he was encouraged by Transatlantic Records boss Nat Joseph, who had signed the group, to pursue a career as a solo performer.
Connolly's career was transformed the following year by a satirical stage musical inspired by his experiences of the shipbuilding industry, which he wrote with poet, novelist and playwright Tom Buchan for the 1972 Fringe. The Great Northern Welly Boot Show, which Connolly also starred in with actor Bill Paterson, was such a success in Edinburgh that it secured a transfer to the Young Vic in London.
Bissett added: 'I'm going to presume that most people will be attracted to the show because of Billy Connolly.
'Loads of people have heard of Alasdair Gray, but they might not have read Lanark or be aware of what he did. I think the show is a really good opportunity to learn all about this really important cultural figure and how important Lanark has been to Scotland.'