Buddies will hit the beat at Paisley’s own opera
Charleston drum to take centre stage at Seedhill event
P a i s l e y ’s famous Charleston drum will play a starring role in an exciting new production of an opera classic.
Scottish Opera is staging Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci in a huge tent at Seedhill Playing Fields later this month.
Director Bill Bankes-Jones told the Paisley Daily Express that the drum, that leads the Sma’ Shot Day parade, will form the background to his take on the piece, which includes a chorus of people from the community.
Speaking about the production, he said: “The piece is set in the north of Italy on the Festival of the Assumption but we’re crossing that with Paisley and the Sma’ Shot festival as it’s basically a similar thing.
“And what we are doing is starting off with the Charleston Drum.
“The story is that at the end of the festival day people are celebrating with the performers, so it’s not that the festival is happening, but that it’s over.”
Mr Bankes-Jones, who lives in Cornwall, first set eyes on Seedhill Playing Fields last year in typically wet Paisley weather.
“I think we are very, very lucky because last year when we went to take a look at it, it was a bog,” he said. “It was very worrying. “But this year that doesn’t look very unlikely. It will probably be dry rather than boggy.”
But it is what happens inside the tent that is the director’s priority.
“The tent is very large and that’s been a fascinating challenge. It’s made it really hard to rehearse,” he said.
“Scottish Opera has a large rehearsal room, which is one-fifth of the area that we’re using. “That has been really difficult. “But it’s not really about the place. I think when you get to Seedhill Park and go into the tent you enter into a sort of bubble.”
For this production of Pagliacci, Scottish Opera has recruited Buddies to make up the chorus.
And Mr Bankes-Jones has enjoyed the experience of working with them. “I love it,” he said. “I don’t know who are the professional chorus and who are the community chorus.
“There’s a great range amongst them...my job is to accept them as performers and value what they are good at and draw it out of them. So, I’m not interested in their deficiencies, I want to see the good bits.
“And they are doing an unbelievable job, they’re acquitting themselves really honourably.”
And this production puts paid to the often-voiced idea that opera is elitist, Mr Bankes-Jones believes.
“What’s lovely is this production will appeal to anybody.” He added: “Just come and see it. “You’ve got very little to lose, a couple of hours and not a huge amount of money, and just see what’s going on.
“I think you would have an absolutely brilliant time, and I think there is an awful lot of surprises in it that will make it very magical.”
Scottish Opera’s production of Pagliacci is at Seedhill Playing Fields on Thursday and Saturday, July 26 and 28 at 7pm, and on Sunday, July 29, at 3pm.
Tickets are £15, and £5 for those under 26. Call 0300 300 1210 or visit www.renfrewshireleisure.com/