Theatre
What The F**kirk?
Slamannan Community Centre, Falkirk
Neil Cooper
Three stars
To suggest that novelist Alan Bissett's latest piece of stand-up theatre is close to home is something of an understatement. What The F**kirk? was written as part of Falkirk Story, an artistic initiative developed by Falkirk Community Trust as a result of the town winning a Creative Place Award. This has also enabled the publication of Alight Here, an anthology of Falkirk writers edited by Bissett. All of which finds him taking a two-week tour of the area's outlying community centres with a cheeky piece of oral history driven by a polemical intent.
Ushered in by live guitar loops played by Adam Stafford, who soundtracks throughout, Bissett's chatty, speak-easy demeanour takes us through his love/hate relationship with the town of his birth along with a potted history of some of its key moments. As well as the Battle of Falkirk that inspired Braveheart, more recent inventions include the world's first Irn Bru factory, plus the hitherto unexplored connections between Falkirk, Game Of Thrones and Iron Man.
Inbetween are filmed reflections on how Falkirk is perceived today by a pan-generational cross-section of the town's residents, and even some older and wiser reflections from Falkirk-born former Arab Strap guitarist Malcolm Middleton, who with band mate Aidan Moffat caused a civic scandal in 1998 with some brutally disparaging opinions on the place that sired them.
As a local boy done good, such a prodigal's return is lapped up by an audience who relate to Bissett's understated common touch. Director Sasha Kyle wraps this all up in a witty meditation on community and local pride that goes beyond economics to put people first.
Tour details at www.alanbissett.com
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article