AFTER the success of Border Warfare last year, Wildcat are returning
to the Tramway in March and April with another ambitious project, a
promenade production -- entitled John Brown's Body -- about the history
of the industrial working class in Scotland. The script will again be
written by John McGrath (who also directs), music will be by Rab
Handleigh and the cast of 18 will include Dave Anderson, John Bett and
Billy Riddoch.
Like Border Warfare, this production has been devised to make full use
of the Tramway's exceptional, flexible space. A model of Pamela Howard's
set gives a tantalising hint of what's in store for audiences. An
overhead wooden walkway snakes round the walls -- those on top of it
are, according to McGrath, ''official'' history, the ones making capital
out of the Industrial Revolution -- while underneath live the working
classes, surrounded by towering wheels and gantries of pithead, mill,
shipyard and factory.
Wildcat's artistic director David MacLennan describes the piece as
''re-establishing that socialism has good goals, humane goals and has,
in Scotland, been achieved by decent activities''. He added that he
didn't think the total lack of commercial sponsorship for John Brown's
Body had anything to do with the politics of the play, rather it
reflected the ongoing fickleness of business sponsorship. The money for
John Brown's Body has come from local authorities and Freeway who will
be filming the piece for Channel 4, currently broadcasting Border
Warfare on Saturday evenings.
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