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| Room to roam: how Scotland's vagabond national theatre broke free | Room to roam: how Scotland's vagabond national theatre broke free |
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| It has staged shows in a barn in Perthshire, a forest in Mid Argyll and now on a Glasgow canal. This shape-shifting company puts place at the heart of its plays | |
| Fri 23 Jun 2017 14.43 BST | |
| Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 21.21 GMT | |
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| For two or three centuries, national theatres have been based in grand culture palaces, with their colonnades, proscenium arches and chandeliers. For little more than a decade, the National Theatre of Scotland has been a theatre “without walls”. If you want to see an NTS show, you have to find it first. The idea takes a little getting used to, but the absence of a building is fundamental to how the organisation operates. Far from being a limitation, it can be artistically liberating. This company is shape-shifting. It can be what it wants. | For two or three centuries, national theatres have been based in grand culture palaces, with their colonnades, proscenium arches and chandeliers. For little more than a decade, the National Theatre of Scotland has been a theatre “without walls”. If you want to see an NTS show, you have to find it first. The idea takes a little getting used to, but the absence of a building is fundamental to how the organisation operates. Far from being a limitation, it can be artistically liberating. This company is shape-shifting. It can be what it wants. |
| Counterintuitively, the lack of a permanent performing space makes the NTS more rooted in place rather than less. A director cannot take location for granted. Every time they set out to make a piece of work, they have to ask: “Why here?” At the National Theatre in London, it is of little consequence whether a show goes on in the Lyttelton or the Olivier, but when your choice ranges from a barn in Perthshire (used by NTS last year for The 306: Dawn) to a forest in Mid Argyll (Half Life, 2007) by way of the 2,000-seat Edinburgh Festival theatre (The James Plays, 2014), the relationship of the art to its surroundings is crucial. | Counterintuitively, the lack of a permanent performing space makes the NTS more rooted in place rather than less. A director cannot take location for granted. Every time they set out to make a piece of work, they have to ask: “Why here?” At the National Theatre in London, it is of little consequence whether a show goes on in the Lyttelton or the Olivier, but when your choice ranges from a barn in Perthshire (used by NTS last year for The 306: Dawn) to a forest in Mid Argyll (Half Life, 2007) by way of the 2,000-seat Edinburgh Festival theatre (The James Plays, 2014), the relationship of the art to its surroundings is crucial. |
| You see this especially in the outreach work of the organisation led by director Simon Sharkey that busies itself with large-scale community projects throughout Scotland. Whether it’s developing parkour skills with teenage boys in Fife, celebrating a local love of tango in Dumfries or smoothing over the merger of two schools in Kilmarnock, the NTS always begins with what is important to the community where it is working. It’s not about imposing an idea from above, but being sensitive to local concerns, giving voice to what has gone unarticulated and expressing what is unique about a place. | You see this especially in the outreach work of the organisation led by director Simon Sharkey that busies itself with large-scale community projects throughout Scotland. Whether it’s developing parkour skills with teenage boys in Fife, celebrating a local love of tango in Dumfries or smoothing over the merger of two schools in Kilmarnock, the NTS always begins with what is important to the community where it is working. It’s not about imposing an idea from above, but being sensitive to local concerns, giving voice to what has gone unarticulated and expressing what is unique about a place. |
| I saw it in action a few years ago in Ignition, a project in Shetland that recognised the centrality of the motor car to island life, from the economic dependence on the oil industry to the need to drive simply to socialise. The project culminated in a performance that largely took place inside moving vehicles before all of the atomised travellers were reunited in a village-hall ceilidh. As an outsider, it let you see the community from the inside out; as a local, it was an expression of a shared identity. | I saw it in action a few years ago in Ignition, a project in Shetland that recognised the centrality of the motor car to island life, from the economic dependence on the oil industry to the need to drive simply to socialise. The project culminated in a performance that largely took place inside moving vehicles before all of the atomised travellers were reunited in a village-hall ceilidh. As an outsider, it let you see the community from the inside out; as a local, it was an expression of a shared identity. |
| Ignition was, in other words, an event that couldn’t have happened in quite the same way anywhere else. The same is true of Submarine Time Machine, taking place on the banks of the Forth and Clyde Canal with its views looking down on central Glasgow. This is where the NTS has recently moved its administrative offices, in an airy warehouse-style complex called Rockvilla, complete with rehearsal rooms, workshops and costume store, but strictly no theatre space. The performance, therefore, happens outdoors along a one-mile section of towpath. | Ignition was, in other words, an event that couldn’t have happened in quite the same way anywhere else. The same is true of Submarine Time Machine, taking place on the banks of the Forth and Clyde Canal with its views looking down on central Glasgow. This is where the NTS has recently moved its administrative offices, in an airy warehouse-style complex called Rockvilla, complete with rehearsal rooms, workshops and costume store, but strictly no theatre space. The performance, therefore, happens outdoors along a one-mile section of towpath. |
| The conceit is that HMS XE9, a second world war midget submarine that made its last journey up the canal in 1952 en route to decommissioning in Rosyth, is more than just a piece of local folklore – it is a time-travelling vessel that can alight at any point in history. So after Alan McHugh has taken us on board his sub (a converted barge attended by the regular crew) and talked us through Jamie MacDonald’s impressive video animations introducing the stories to come, we head out for a dozen scenes played out by professional and community actors. | The conceit is that HMS XE9, a second world war midget submarine that made its last journey up the canal in 1952 en route to decommissioning in Rosyth, is more than just a piece of local folklore – it is a time-travelling vessel that can alight at any point in history. So after Alan McHugh has taken us on board his sub (a converted barge attended by the regular crew) and talked us through Jamie MacDonald’s impressive video animations introducing the stories to come, we head out for a dozen scenes played out by professional and community actors. |
| Written by Sharkey in a relentless rhyming scheme – wearying or invigorating, depending on the performer – they take an amusingly casual approach to the line between fact and fiction. We know that Partick Thistle really did beat Celtic 4–1 in 1971 (the goals lovingly restaged on video by local fans), and that the canal risked heavy bombardment in the blitz of 1941, but as for the lost gold, the 6ft fish and the fairies, there’s a dizzying blur between truth and urban legend. | Written by Sharkey in a relentless rhyming scheme – wearying or invigorating, depending on the performer – they take an amusingly casual approach to the line between fact and fiction. We know that Partick Thistle really did beat Celtic 4–1 in 1971 (the goals lovingly restaged on video by local fans), and that the canal risked heavy bombardment in the blitz of 1941, but as for the lost gold, the 6ft fish and the fairies, there’s a dizzying blur between truth and urban legend. |
| And, of course, that doesn’t matter. Because what the canal means to people who live nearby is everything from the fanciful to the factual, from the tragic fable of the hart and the fox (gorgeously retold by Jo Freer backed by a community choir) to the Whisky Galore-style raid on a barge’s cargo. In this way, Submarine Time Machine is a statement of belonging, an expression of a community’s common experience, a way of seeing a place as others see it. | And, of course, that doesn’t matter. Because what the canal means to people who live nearby is everything from the fanciful to the factual, from the tragic fable of the hart and the fox (gorgeously retold by Jo Freer backed by a community choir) to the Whisky Galore-style raid on a barge’s cargo. In this way, Submarine Time Machine is a statement of belonging, an expression of a community’s common experience, a way of seeing a place as others see it. |
| • Submarine Time Machine is at the Forth and Clyde Canal, Glasglow, until 25 June. Box office: 0141-221 0970. | • Submarine Time Machine is at the Forth and Clyde Canal, Glasglow, until 25 June. Box office: 0141-221 0970. |
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