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The Herald Scotland
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Fringe show explores 'origin stories' of Connolly and Gray
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.'
The National
29-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The National
When Billy Met Alasdair: Alan Bissett on new Edinburgh Fringe show
Alasdair Gray is one of the towering figures of Scottish letters, Billy Connolly is the nation's greatest comic. Stature aside, they might seem like slightly unusual bedfellows, writer Alan Bissett told the Sunday National, but the two men had more in common than might first be assumed. Bissett's one-man play When Billy Met Alasdair at this year's Fringe follows the lives of both men, culminating with their meeting at the launch of Gray's magnum opus Lanark at the Third Eye Centre in Glasgow in 1981. 'In some ways, they're a study in contrasts because they're from completely different worlds: Billy's an entertainer, worked in the shipyards; Alastair's very highbrow and learned. It's like he absorbed the whole canon of Western literature,' said Bissett. 'Those contrasts are what drew me towards them. But actually, they are more similar than you think because Billy is also a very well-read person and he has a very keen eye for the arts – he's a painter as well. 'He's an incredibly articulate and intelligent man and cultured. And Alastair's also very funny. So while they seem like they seem like two very contrasting figures, underneath it, they've got much more in common than you think.' (Image: Gordon Terris / The Herald) Bissett (above), the writer behind The Moira Monologues and novels such as Boyracers and Lazy Susan, was inspired to write the play when he found a photograph of Connolly having his book signed by Gray. 'Because the two of them have meant so much to me individually, to see a photograph of the two of them in the same in the same shot, to see Billy getting his book signed by Alastair at the launch for Lanark, I was just always really fascinated by what they might have talked about or how Billy ended up there – what that shot meant, basically,' he said. Researching the script was the most time-consuming aspect of its writing says Bissett, digging into his friend Rodge Glass's biography of Gray, informed by his work as the author's secretary, as well as books by or about Connolly. 'You can feel the material to start to sing to you, it lifts out of the pages of research and the characters come with it and you might get some scenes that present themselves or lines of dialogue and that starts to gradually coalesce,' he said. 'It's almost like the project telling you that you've been prepping long enough and now it's time to give birth.' Redrafting was done partly in rehearsals with the play's director Kirstin McLean, who helped Bissett with his portrayal of both men. Playing both parts, plus a third, unnamed character, poses its challenges: 'If you forget your line and you're the only person on stage – wow. 'You just need to jam for a bit until it comes back to you.' Bissett's passion for both men is evident, describing them as his heroes. 'Billy Connolly has been a part of my life since my childhood, watching his videos with my family, all of us pissing ourselves laughing – probably the same story everyone in Scotland can tell,' he said. Meanwhile Gray loomed over him for some time as a young writer and Bissett described Lanark's reputation as being like a 'mountain that had to be scaled'. 'Then you get to the top of the mountain and there's this incredible view,' he said. Speaking about performing, Bissett takes on an almost religious edge. 'There's a really interesting phenomenon when you've performed in front of an audience for long enough, you get to be able to read a silence,' he said. 'Even if there's complete silence in front of you, you can tell the difference between a bored silence and an engaged silence. There's something about the quality of that silence that transmits; either frustration on the audience's part or willingness to go with you. You have to be able to react to tiny pressures in the room that are coming from the audience and that then feeds your performance. 'The audience gives you energy; if you're getting absolutely nothing from them, it's difficult to keep going. I mean, you do keep going but if you get the feeling the audience are warm and encouraging, it gives you so much power in your performance that it becomes a pleasure and that's why a performer does it, it's for that feeling.' Alan Bissett performs When Billy Met Alasdair at the Scottish Storytelling Centre at the Edinburgh Fringe from Thursday, July 31 to Saturday, August 23, with no shows on August 1, 6, 8, 13, 14, 20 or 21. To find out more or buy tickets, go to
The Herald Scotland
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Scottish stories being told at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
With new shows and events being added every week to the line-up, here are just a few highlights from the ever-expanding programme that is taking shape. Read more: When Billy Met Alasdair, Scottish Storytelling Centre: Award-winning writer Alan Bissett's show is inspired by an encounter between Sir Billy Connolly and Alasdair Gray when the comic met the writer at the launch of his novel Lanark in 1981. Bissett, who is best known at the Fringe for The Moira Monologues, will be exploring the 'origins stories,' struggles and triumphs of Connolly and Gray in a show given a sneak preview at this year's Glasgow Comedy Festival. The birdlife of Shetland has inspired Kathryn Gordon's Fringe show A Journey of Flight. (Image: Supplied) A Journey of Flight, Dace Base: Choreographer Kathryn Gordon has created immersive experience inspired by the birdlife of Shetland, where she lives. Dance, live music and visual projects will be combined to explore themes of arrivals, departures, place and flight. The piece, which was created in Shetland is aimed at encouraging audiences to 'reflect on the delicate balance between 'nature, movement and our emotional ties to place and each other.' River City and Shetland star Gail Watson will be appearing in Faye's Red Lines at the Fringe. Windblown, Queen's Hall: A palm tree removed from Edinburgh's Royal Botanic Garden after more than 200 years has inspired a new stage from award-winning singer-songwriter Karine Polwart. The Sabel bemudana palm was removed last year from the tropical palm house after outgrowing the building, which is currently closed for refurbishment. The tree, which had been transported to the attraction in the 1820s from its previous home on Leith Walk, had 'outgrow' the building and was said to be too frail to be relocated again. Johnny McKnight will be performing his pantomime-inspired stage show She's Behind You at this year's Fringe. (Image: Traverse Theatre) Polwart's show will imagine the poetic and musical voice of the tree in what she describes as 'an exploration of historical legacies, ecological loss, collective ritual and the multi-generational promise of gardens.' She's Behind You, Traverse Theatre: Scottish theatre-maker Johnny McKnight will be reflecting on 'a lifetime spent in pantomimes' in the one-man show he is creating with award-winning director John Tiffany, who was at the helm of the recent Edinburgh stage hit Wild Rose. McKnight, who has written more than 30 pantos and played 18 dames himself, will be looking back at his personal experiences across 20 years of Scottish production. The show, which is being adapted from a lecture McKnight delivered in full custom for the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, is expected to be exploration of identity, courage and acceptance. The Traverse has billed She's Behind You as 'a celebration of shifting traditions and the unexpected beauty found in the anarchy of pantomime.' Faye's Red Lines, Gilded Balloon: River City and Shetland actress Gail Watson portray a woman with a paralysing fear of intimacy in Rab C Nesbitt creator Ian Pattison's play. The character played by Watson, who starred alongside Andy Gray and Jordan Young in last year's Gilded Balloon hit Chemo Savvy, will confront her long buried past and her solitary life. Skye: A Thriller, Summerhall: The Isle of Skye provides the backdrop to best-selling author and theatre producer Ellie Keel's debut play. It explores the events which unfold when four siblings on holiday believe they saw their their father on a beach four years after he passed away. The show is billed as 'a relentless search for the truth, on a rugged island where real people and ghosts seem to walk hand in hand among the mountains and lochs.' 24 Weeks, Gilded Balloon: The debate over reproduction rights in Scotland has inspired a play set in a not-so-distant future Scotland where abortion has been made illegal. The show focuses on the relationships between three friends who are divided on what to do when one of them falls pregnant.
