My festival
What were you planning to do at this year’s festival? There were some pretty big plans. Our new company Disaster Plan had premiered its first ever show Move~gluasad by my partner Julia Taudevin up on the Isle of Lewis in January. It’s a beguiling and haunting and unique show and we were excited to bring it to wider audiences as part of the Made In Scotland programme. My play Mouthpiece was mooted for a homecoming run at the Traverse. I’d been in talks about bringing Heads Up back. So it’s a pretty gutting loss.
What are you doing instead? Lorn Macdonald is directing an online short filmic take on Mouthpiece called Declan – it’s his sort of experimental portrait of one of its two characters. So that’s pretty cool. He is also doing a oneoff reading of my play Beats as part of Gary Mcnair and Francesca Moody’s Shedinburgh Fringe. And a smattering of words from my other big corona cancellation – an adaptation of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People for NTS – are being used in Hope Dickson Leach’s film Ghost Light. Both Declan and Ghost Light are part of EIF so I’m claiming it as my EIF debut year.
What impact has the lockdown had on you?
The work impact has been pretty devastating. Life at home with two small kids has obviously been challenging, though we’re not special in that regard. Julia and I both got Covid-19 right at the start and recovery has taken a very long time. I’ve been pretty knocked flat with fairly debilitating post-covid fatigue symptoms, all of which has made continuing work really challenging. I’ll be honest with you: it has been pish.
What do you think the future of theatre looks like? Eesh. There’s a lot that’s not inevitable and a lot to be