So, how will we tell Scotland's story?

Senior Features Writer

Tuesday 31 July 2012

Follow that then.

You do wonder if the organisers of Glasgow 2014 downed several stiff drinks on Friday night as they watched Danny Boyle's bravura Olympics opening ceremony. Admittedly, Commonwealth Game ceremonies don't need to be quite such a song and dance as their Olympic equivalent (just as well as they have a budget that is a drop in the ocean compared to the £27m Boyle was given to spend), but a very high benchmark has been laid down. And not just in terms of spectacle.

Watching Friday night's chaotic, noisy, slightly ragged, often funny opening I found myself thrilled by a vision of Britishness that I could totally buy into, one that presented the country as not only quirky and creative (spanning everyone from Isambard Kingdom Brunel to David Bowie and Bill Forsyth), but liberal and progressive. A nation of suffragettes and NHS workers, a nation that makes the beautiful gesture of asking Doreen Lawrence to carrying the Olympic flag. Of course Boyle's vision of Britain was myth-making, as all such celebrations are. But its tolerance, its lack of pomp, its multiculturalism, its simple humanity spoke of the best of what it might mean to be British. Looking forward to the 2014 ceremony the obvious question is what is the story that Scotland will seek to tell about itself? Given that it will take place in the same year as a certain referendum that story may have all kinds of political resonances, after all. And given that some of us will vote for emotional as much as political or economic reasons, it's a story that may have some sway. I am, I must confess, a slightly reluctant nationalist. I've lived in Scotland for the best part of 30 years – most of my life – but I still describe myself as Northern Irish. I'm British when it comes to sport and culture. When am I Scottish? Umm, get back to me on that one. My sense of Britishness comes, no doubt, from some residual trace of a soft Ulster Unionist background (even though I've little time for the politics of that label), but mostly from a huge affection for Anglophile pop culture – everything from Michael Powell to Morrissey and Tony Hancock to Tottenham Hotspur. But with the Tories in power and Labour still incapable of shaking off its Middle England slavishness, of late I've been thinking about what an independent Scotland might actually look like. It's a blurry picture. There's a liberal, progressive, creative Scotland out there, no doubt. The SNP Government has made hugely brave moves. Freeing Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi and announcing that it would legislate for gay marriages are markers for a country I'd want to belong to. And after caving in to Donald Trump over his golf complex near Aberdeen it does seem to be standing up to him on the issue of windfarms. And yet at times Scotland feels like a parochial and insular country, one happy to hunker down with the security of familiar attitudes, even if they are out of date and offensive (and yes I am thinking of Bishop Tartaglia). It's also infected with a curious cultural timidity. This is strange in a nation blessed with hugely talented artists, writers and musicians. But it's hard to miss. Why hasn't BBC Scotland commissioned any of those writers – Janice Galloway, Alan Bissett, Irvine Welsh even – to give us original Scottish drama? Why are we so ready to welcome films like Brave with such open arms before most of us have seen it? (It's as if we're just thrilled someone has noticed us). Which leads to one more question. Why has Glasgow 2014 asked Eileen Gallagher to be its Danny Boyle? I'm sure she is a hugely capable woman but is the producer of vaguely trashy TV shows such as Footballer's Wives really the one to offer a vision of Scotland likely to inspire in the way Danny Boyle did? Over the next couple of years Scotland is going to be telling itself all sorts of stories in a bid to work out who and what it is. Those of us who are undecided will want to hear them. Let's just hope we have a storyteller equal to the task.

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So, how will we tell Scotland's story?

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