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The National
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The National
Alba playwright puts working-class voices on stage at Edinburgh Fringe
The Glaswegian isn't afraid to tackle controversial issues either. Fresh from touring Alba, his critically acclaimed show about the Scottish independence referendum, he is about to stage a play dealing with toxic masculinity. Full of Glaswegian patter, it's one of three pieces of Scottish theatre presented by Underbelly during the Fringe this year and seems set to be as much of a hit as Alba. 'I'm pouring all my savings into it to get us there, but I think it's worthwhile,' he told the Sunday National. 'When we did Alba, we only did 12 days and we made the money back that we put in, plus a wee bit more. 'I think Going Soft has a broader appeal, so we'll hopefully see an increase in audience numbers for this and we've got a better spot during the day. The last show, with a name like Alba, had the potential to turn people away if they just assumed it was about a certain political party or a certain political view.' With prices now so high for renting venues and accommodation at the Fringe, making sure Scottish working-class voices are heard is becoming more difficult, but Byrne feels it is essential for Scottish actors, playwrights and theatre companies to continue to take part. 'It's something I'm passionate about and I've got a goal going into it, but the prices are just going up and up,' he said. 'For working-class people, being able to just put on a show, you're just getting out-priced. 'But as Scots, we've got to make sure we've still got a seat at the table and we've still got a voice in this festival, especially when it's on our home turf, so that we can network with other artists from Scotland and also globally.' Byrne agrees there is a danger that Scottish voices could be squeezed out but is optimistic this can be overcome. 'It's always a possibility with the amount of stuff from elsewhere that it starts to diminish the Scottish voice,' he said. 'But I think we'll always be loud, as a people and as a nation. I don't think we'll let ourselves go quietly. There'll always be somebody there shouting for us.' Making sure that some of those voices are working class is what led him to start his theatre company, Action Theatre Scotland. 'That's something that we really push,' he said. 'The goal with the last show and now with this one is to get working-class voices on the stage and heard, because you don't hear them as much on this kind of platform, especially when it's the world's biggest arts festival. We want to carve out a wee space for working-class theatre. It's nice to get a voice out there.' Going Soft is centred on a Glasgow prison-themed bar where the co-owners are attempting to set up an adults-only soft play. 'I always want to focus on issues that are prevalent in society,' said Byrne. 'That's why we're called Action Theatre Scotland – because we want to focus on important issues in a kind of call to action.' He believes toxic masculinity, the focus of the recent hit TV series Adolescence, is still a huge problem in society. 'It's a real issue because young men feel they need to act a certain way and can't just express themselves or be themselves, so I wanted to tell that story through this lens of the two working-class guys in working-class Glasgow, and show my experience of it,' said Byrne. Going Soft was inspired by prison-themed bars south of the Border where punters are presented with orange jumpsuits to wear while they are drinking. 'I want to put my spin on it, a Glaswegian spin, so it is a fast-paced, high-energy show, dealing with heavier themes but with that comedic edge,' said Byrne. Going Soft runs from July 31 to August 24 with the exception of August 12. Two of the other Scottish shows at Underbelly during the Fringe are Desperate Wee Gay Boy, a Fringe debut from writer-performer Fraser Kelsey about a thrill-seeking Scot navigating London's queer nightlife and Mary, Queen of Rock!, above, from a female-led Pretty Knicker Productions, who staged Salamander in 2023 which garnered a host of five and four-star reviews. It is described as a fun piece of gig theatre set against a surrealist backdrop of the Scottish Reformation where rock'n'roll has been banned. Mary Stuart, reimagined as the world's biggest rockstar, is tasked with reclaiming the throne of rock. Anyone with EH, G, KY or FK postcodes can benefit from 20% shows on a Wednesday and Thursday with the code LOCALHERD at the checkout – or in person at box offices during the festival.
The National
06-07-2025
- Politics
- The National
First Minister John Swinney on 10 things that changed his life
Now First Minister, Swinney sat down with The Sunday National to reflect on 10 things that shaped his journey and changed his life – even if, he says, 'I could have gone on for an awful lot more than 10'. 1: His parents AS I sit down with the First Minister in his office in Holyrood, the question of how to begin the interview inevitably comes up. We're to talk about the 10 things that changed his life, but 'what's number one then?' isn't exactly the sharp opening question political reporters hope for. But I don't even need to ask it. Swinney is ready, a list in hand, and his first entry has never been in doubt. 'A fundamental influence in my life is my parents, my mum and dad,' he says. 'I grew up in a very supportive, encouraging and loving household, so I benefited from all of that.' First Minister John Swinney speaking to the Sunday National's Xander Elliards in his Holyrood office (Image: Gordon Terris) He credits his work ethic to his father Ken, a now-93-year-old former motor mechanic. 'I would watch him as a boy,' Swinney says. 'He was incredible. He could lift the bonnet of a car, stick his head in, and from listening he would tell you what was wrong with it.' As the conversation turns to his mother, Nancy, who passed on in 2020 at age 89, Swinney's tone softens. 'My mum was a kind, generous, non-judgmental woman,' he says. 'I never, ever heard her speak in a kind of gossipy way about anybody, she just didn't do it. 'In all the walks of life that she was involved in, she was a giver.' He recalls her voluntary work with St Columba's Hospice, the church and the MS Society – long before her daughter-in-law's diagnosis. The First Minister says he has been 'undeniably' shaped by the hard graft of his father and 'generosity of spirit' of his mother – but while his parents supported his ambitions, overt political discussion at home was rare. 'My father won't tell me anything about him and the ballot box – and that maintains to this day.' 2: The 1979 Scottish Assembly referendum IN 1979, Scots were asked to vote on a devolved Scottish assembly. The 'Yes' side won – but a clause stipulating that 40% of the electorate had to vote in favour meant the choice was blocked. For Swinney, the result was instrumental in his political journey. 'I'm seeing this vibrant campaign about Scotland taking control of our own affairs, and I get interested in it. It captures my imagination,' he says. Donald Dewar, George Robertson and John Home Robertson campaigning for Yes in 1979 (Image: Archive) 'I remember coming home – I used to come home from school for lunch – on the Friday lunchtime. I remember my mum saying to me, 'I don't think your side's won'. 'I remember vividly thinking to myself, 'look, if you care about this, you should do something about it'. So I wrote to the SNP in May 1979 and joined the party.' Years later, SNP staffers unearthed that very letter at party HQ. 'I now am in possession of not only the letter that they sent me back saying welcome to the SNP, I've got the letter that I sent to them,' Swinney says. 3: Elizabeth Quigley NUMBER three needs little introduction. 'Elizabeth Quigley, my wife,' Swinney says. 'She's a remarkable individual because, well, she's prepared to put up with me, which makes her very remarkable.' Was it love at first sight? 'It probably was actually. Yes, I'd say so.' That may have been slightly awkward, given their respective positions when the pair first met in 2001. 'She was BBC Scotland's political correspondent,' Swinney says. 'I was leader of the SNP.' John Swinney with his wife Elizabeth Quigley, pictured outside Bute House after he became First Minister (Image: PA) He adds that she made an 'enormous sacrifice' in leaving that role to allow them to be together, 'which I think is just illustrative of what Elizabeth is'. But, Swinney goes on: 'I'm blessed with the fact that when I go home and I talk about something politically, I'm talking to someone, to my wife, who is politically astute, experienced, informed, clued up. 'She can interrogate and challenge without ever saying to me, you should do this. She never does that.' As a BBC journalist, Elizabeth has written about her diagnosis with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in 2000, something Swinney says weighed heavily in life decisions – not least whether to run for First Minister. 'She's totally determined to avoid MS getting in the way of leading a full life,' he says. 'But it's a factor.' 4: Becoming a father and a grandfather THE First Minister is father to three children: Judith, born in 1994; Stuart, in 1996; and Matthew, in 2010. Becoming a parent 'automatically, instantaneously makes you a grown up', Swinney says. 'I think it brings out an even more intense sense of care, responsibility, empathy, encouragement, nurture, all these things. That's what it's done to me anyway.' Earlier this year, he welcomed his first grandchild when Judith gave birth to Rua. John Swinney with his grandchild Rua in an image shared by the First Minister on social media (Image: Twitter/X)Swinney recalls learning of the new arrival in perhaps not the most conventional way. 'I said to her, about a week before her due date ... I said, look, I think we should just stop being in touch with each other because I will just quite literally be so worried. Just phone me when you've had the baby. We'll have a no-call zone for a wee while. 'When I got a phone call at 6:30 on a Monday morning, I realised, 'ah, something has happened'.' 5: Running THE First Minister's love of running is well known nowadays. He was even talked into a literal foot-race against Holyrood's other party leaders for charity a few weeks ago. But it all began back in 2009, with an impromptu visit to the hospital. Though it was a false alarm, one doctor's question stuck: 'How heavy were you when you became a member of parliament?' 'I'd never thought of this,' the First Minister says. 'I was four stone heavier. I thought, I can't go back and see this guy without doing something about it.' John Swinney pictured in the Holyrood chamber in 2009 when, he says, he was around four stone heavier than when he first entered parliament (Image: PA) From an initial 5k in Perth ('Much to my surprise I didn't die'), the SNP leader moved on to 10ks, then half-marathons, before in 2014 completing the Rome Marathon. Now, Swinney says, running is about much more than keeping off that extra four stone. It is meditative and a part of his 'equilibrium'. 'I find that I can go to bed at night, a question in my head that I can't quite resolve, and when I'm running in the morning, it gets answered,' he says. 6: The SNP winning the 2007 election THE SNP's 2007 Holyrood election victory was a turning point in Scottish history. But for Swinney, it was also a hugely personal moment. 'I suppose in my heart of hearts, having joined a fringe party in 1979 that had two MPs and not much going for it, I didn't really think I would ever even become a member of parliament,' he says. 'So to win the 2007 election and to be appointed a government minister was just literally the most remarkable moment of life.' After a long night disrupted by problems with electronic counting, Swinney finally got to bed at 6am. 'At about 8 o'clock, my friend Brian Adam, then member for Aberdeen North, phoned me to tell me he'd been returned. 'I said, 'Thanks Brian, I'm trying to sleep, mate'.' But that was not going to be possible. The vote tallies were racking up, and it looked like the SNP might be in. 'You know that moment where you just know that you're about to doze off?' Swinney asks. It was then that the phone rang again. John Swinney and Alex Salmond pictured on stage at the 2011 SNP conference (Image: PA) 'All I can hear is what sounds like a helicopter. It was Alex Salmond and he says to me, can you get yourself to Edinburgh?' Driving across the Forth Road Bridge, Swinney heard his then-leader's words on the radio: 'Scotland has changed forever as a result of what's happened today.' 'I was conscious that I had tears streaming down my face,' he says. 'You instantaneously move from the periphery of politics to the heart of politics.' Did he feel imposter syndrome? 'No. I thought we were ready for it. It felt as if we had just arrived.' 7: The Jam THIS one takes me off guard. Directly after discussing the high emotion of 2007's election, I don't immediately understand what Swinney means by 'The Jam'. He clarifies he means the band led by Paul Weller, and he is deadly serious. 'This is an integral part of my entire being,' the First Minister says. 'I fell in love with The Jam at about the same time as I fell in love with the SNP. 1979ish. I saw them play at the Playhouse in 1982. I just loved everything The Jam produced. 'I have a Jam tune in my running music. The Jam will always be in there.' Favourite album? 'Setting Sons.' It was their fourth, released in 1979. A favourite song? 'That's not hard at all. Down In The Tube Station At Midnight.' I don't immediately know the number, but later learn that it recounts a violent right-wing attack in a London subway amid a wider disintegration of community values in 1970s Britain. Perhaps it's no coincidence that a song about creeping fascism and social decay resonated so deeply with a young, pro-independence Scot. 8: Faith SWINNEY was raised in the Church of Scotland. His mother Nancy was a Sunday school teacher. But as a teenager and younger man, he says, he found himself naturally moving away from the Christian faith. But, the First Minister says, some of the teachings never left him. 'Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself – the more I think about it, is the absolute foundation of my entire being,' he says. Asked what brought him back to the church, the First Minister does not even stop to think. 'Becoming a father,' he says. 'That's when I started to think through, you know, what's happening here, and that was when I reconnected with my faith.' Ultimately, he says faith has given him two central anchors in life. One, how to treat others. And two, that 'however tough it all gets, you've always got the love of God'. 9: Scotland's islands 'I will never tire of seeing that picture, Iona rocks,' Swinney says, pointing to one of two similar paintings hanging on his office wall. 'I will never tire of looking at white sand and turquoise water. Never.' The second painting is of Barra, another of Scotland's islands – which Swinney collectively names as the ninth thing to have changed his life. John Swinney with the paintings of Barra and Iona rocks which hang in his office (Image: Gordon Terris) As SNP leader, he is technically the trustee of Eilean Mor, the largest of the MacCormaig Isles, which the party was bequeathed in 1978. But there is another island in particular that for him outshines the others: Tiree. He explains: 'When Elizabeth and I got together, we had a few days up in the north west. I remember standing just beside the terminal at Ullapool, and we watched the ferry come in and go out. 'Neither of us really knew our islands well, so we said, let's start going. Every year thereafter, we just went to a different island.' So begins a test of memory, with Swinney recounting visiting Mull in 2002, Islay in 2003, Orkney in 2004, Tiree in 2005, the Western Isles in 2006. By 2012, on another visit to Mull, Swinney says that Elizabeth's mobility was 'becoming a bit of an issue' due to her MS. 'So I remember walking out past Calgary Bay in Mull, I had Matthew up in a rucksack in my back, and I looked out from the peak and I saw Tiree out there. 'I thought, if we go to Tiree, it'll be easier to get Elizabeth on to a beach. So in 2013 we started going back to Tiree, and we've gone there ever since.' 10: Becoming First Minister 'THE final one you won't be surprised to hear,' Swinney says. 'It's becoming the First Minister of Scotland, in so many different ways, particularly because of the manner in which I became First Minister.' When the world learned of Humza Yousaf's resignation – Swinney says he was warned he would have a decision to make the night before – 'my phone basically melted in front of my eyes'. 'It just went on like that all day. Utterly overwhelming, from all sides of opinion in the SNP – people who ordinarily would maybe not have me top of their pin-up list coming and saying, 'we need you to do this'.' It was a family decision. Friends stepped in to offer support to Elizabeth and their teenage son Matthew to make it possible. But one absence hit hard. John Swinney's portrait on the wall in Bute House, alongside Scotland's previous first ministers since devolution (Image: PA) 'The only bit of it that I really struggled with was on the occasion I became First Minister, my dad, my brother, my brother's family, my family, my party friends, my personal friends were in the gallery,' he says. 'There was one person missing, and that was my beloved mother.' He adds, visibly moved: 'I thought I can't deliver this speech without making reference to her. 'I talked about how her local minister had written to me and she said, 'your mum would have been quietly proud'. Those words from my mum's minister, that summed my mother up. 'There wouldn't be a big song and dance about it. She would not have thrown a party. She would have just held my hand with care and said, 'remember what you've got to do'. 'That was the only bit that I struggled with. I still struggle with it.'
The National
29-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The National
One-woman play will explore explosion of extreme sex acts on OnlyFans
A one-woman show, it is written and performed by former model Issy Knowles in response to the vilification of the women who are selling videos of themselves having sex with up to 1000 men in a short space of time. Body Count explores the phenomenon and why it creates so much fury. 'I am fascinated by the amount of emotion extreme sex acts seem to garner from everybody,' Knowles told the Sunday National. READ MORE: Kneecap responds to 'legend' who streamed their Glastonbury set after BBC blackout 'They make people so angry but I feel these kinds of events deserve a bit more critical analysis and a bit more compassion.' Knowles pointed out that while there are just a handful of women, such as Bonnie Blue and Lily Phillips, who have been posting these videos on the OnlyFans website, there are thousands of men queuing up to have sex with the women and many thousands, if not millions, paying to view the end result. 'It is men who have created this market but it is of course the women who are vilified,' said Knowles. She is no stranger to the Fringe, having written and performed in her one-woman hit Model Behaviour in 2018 which was later developed into a TV pilot and picked up by Downton Abbey producer Carnival Films. The script topped the Brit List in 2022 and Knowles's debut feature, a horror called Hungry Mouth, is in development with Meduza, who produced the Robert Eggers horror The Witch. In the meantime, she is thrilled to be returning to the Fringe with the new show which will be staged at the Pleasance. (Image: Body Count) 'I've been dying to take a play back to the Fringe but I've discovered that in order for me to write a one-woman show, I have to be seething with rage about something,' said Knowles. 'That's the only thing that can get me back on stage because it is incredibly intimidating to be on stage on your own for an hour. So I just had to land on something that made me angry enough.' Despite her anger, she still hesitated about pitching the idea. 'I'm not a sex worker and I struggled with the ethics of whether it was even my place to talk about this and I am still thinking it is going to piss off the right and the left,' Knowles said. 'However, I am proud of what I've ended up with and I think it is going to be a really funny, challenging show. I just want to make people think a bit deeper about stuff like this and look past what is being thrown in our faces by a patriarchal society in a very right-wing world.' The finished show is not the one she set out to write, as she became more interested in society's response to the phenomenon during the research and writing. 'There is all this panic around OnlyFans and sex work but OnlyFans for sex workers has been a really good invention because it cuts out pimps or managers,' said Knowles. 'It's been positive for the sex-working community but there is a moral panic around it. 'Men are always asking how we can stop women creating an OnlyFans page when the question is why so many women feel it is the only way to garner a lot of financial wealth in their lifetime.' She said that instead of asking how we can stop women selling on to the website, we should be looking at society and picking up on the fact that there is still a glass ceiling, there is still a gender pay gap. 'It is still a patriarchal society that limits women's growth and potential,' said Knowles. 'Also what is it about sex that as a society we feel so strongly that women don't know their own sexual limits and we feel the need to control the sex women have and the amount they have?' As well as the extreme sex acts phenomenon, the finished play puts a spotlight on the rise of the right-wing and incel culture. And having been single for the past couple of years after a four-year relationship, Knowles said she personally had felt the effects of people like Andrew Tate becoming more popular and misogyny becoming more normalised. 'Misogyny is on the rise and we have evidence in real time with reproductive rights being stripped away and trans rights being eroded,' she said. 'In the conversations I am having with men, I can see how comfortable many have become in their misogyny. Obviously it is not all men but I have never had so many men come over to me and ask me what my body count is straight away. As if it is any indication of what kind of person I am. It just feels like misogyny is on the rise and it is not a great time to be a woman.' Knowles said the recent OnlyFans events highlight the lack of connection in society and the trend to objectify women to the point that men can queue up for one-sided pleasure and not think much about it. But while she believes it is not a great time to be a woman, Knowles also feels it is not a great time to be a man. 'Underneath all of this is this desire to connect,' she said. 'Men don't have the same community that women create and I think the success of these OnlyFans events is a sign of that. 'In writing the play, I wanted to get into the heads of both sides. I really wanted to humanise and understand more deeply the women who are in there and the men who are queuing up to take part. 'I wanted to find something in this that is actually a bit hopeful, as bizarre as that sounds, and if people want to find out where it ends up, they will have to come and see.' Body Count premieres at the Pleasance Courtyard and runs from July 30 to August 25
The National
29-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The National
Woman sets up her tent to make sure working-class voices are heard
Rents of £7000 for one bedroom in a shared flat for a month has made Narin Özenci shell out for a tent so she can bring her one-woman show to the city. She told the Sunday National that she wasn't going to let the high costs put her off staging her show, Inner Child(ish), as she felt too many working-class voices were being forced out of the Fringe because of the expense. 'I don't know how anyone can justify £7000 for one room for a month,' said Özenci, who has autism. 'You hardly see any working-class people there now because of the costs. That has driven me to do it even more as I want to help represent the working class.' READ MORE: 'Completely unprecedented': BBC cuts live feed for Kneecap Glastonbury performance Özenci first appeared at the Fringe in 2014, creating a stir by performing her show in her car. 'I could only squeeze in four or five people at a time but it got good feedback and Mark Watson came to interview me for BBC2's Edinburgh Nights,' she said. As she no longer owns a car, she will have to lug her tent to Edinburgh via public transport. And while she has camped before, she admitted that living in a tent for a month would be a challenge. 'I've never camped for as long as a month so it is going to be intense,' she joked. 'I probably will get a bit grumpy. Fortunately, I have a good sense of humour so I am trying to look at it as a funny adventure. And I might try to find someone strong and sexy to help me put up the tent.' Born in Essex to a Turkish Cypriot family as a second-generation immigrant, Özenci was not screened for autism until she was at university where she also discovered the clowning group Ridiculusmus. Inspired, she entered a TV writing competition and won a place in the Edinburgh International TV Festival 2003. However, during a networking event, she was laughed at by a group of girls in the toilets for not wearing party clothes or make-up. After ranting about it to the comedian John Ryan, he advised her to try stand-up comedy. She took his advice and started gigging, integrating comedy into her degree and finally graduating from Aberystwyth University with a BA (Hons) in Performance with Film and TV. In 2016, she received her first major acting and writing credit for Girls Go Trolling (Channel 4 Online) and made guest appearances in Hooligan Legacy (2016), Finding Fatimah (2017) and Man Like Mobeen (2018). Özenci is making her welcome return to the Fringe this year with her new show which is a cross between stand-up and clowning. 'It's a satire but it comes from a place of truth as the whole show is an allegory for an autistic meltdown,' she said. 'I wanted to demonstrate what it is like to be in a meltdown and how I get out of it. 'I'm not actually having a meltdown – I am humourising it because that is the only way it does not have power over me. It's also to educate neurotypical people as to how we process information and what we do when we are in a mess.' In the show, Özenci's alter ego, Narin Oz, is a misbehaving, rule-breaking, prank-loving being who enjoys nothing more than taking reality and flipping it on its head. She likes challenging the status quo, messing with social order and enjoying the chaos. It's a relaxed performance for the whole month as she wants neurodivergent people as well as neurotypicals to come along. 'I want people to be able to own who they are as a person because being neurodivergent is nothing to be ashamed of,' Özenci said. As well as writing and performing in the show, she is in the process of developing clown workshops specifically for neurodivergent people to help them embrace their full, unmasked selves. In her spare time, she is practising putting up her tent. Narin Oz: Inner Child(ish) is on from July 31 until August 24 (not August 12) at the Just the Tonic Mash House.
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
