JEMIMA Levick reckons it could well have been the day she saw her mum with the bucket on her head that changed the direction of her life.

Levick, who is now charged with bringing Glasgow lunchtime theatre at Oran Mor back to life, explains with a smile. “My mum was a not brilliant actor when I was very little. She did terrible Theatre In Education shows. I can remember watching her on stage once with a bucket on her head.

“But what must have stuck with me was this love for storytelling. Later I studied film studies but changed to theatre because I realised it was a world I loved.”

Levick, who lived in London as a child but then moved to Bristol (“because the roof was falling in it was far cheaper") studied at Edinburgh’s Queen Margaret, worked in admin at the Traverse, waitressed in the restaurant around the corner and made her way up the ladder, working at Dundee Rep and Stellar Quines.

She has a towering CV. But now the weight on the theatre boss’s shoulders is heavier than King Lear, Henry V and Coriolanus put together.

Not only is Oran Mor’s new artistic director charged with re-presenting the West End theatre to an audience after the former church’s doors have been closed for 18 months, she has to contend with the continuing impact of Covid.

Will the new season’s programme entice theatre goers into the space? Will the plays provide the fun and drama which the basement theatre has previously enjoyed?

And more importantly, will the audiences be confident enough to share a relatively confined space with 200 others? Other theatres, such as the Tron and the Traverse have delayed opening doors until next year. Some have allowed for outdoor performances only.

The King’s Theatre in Glasgow is now open, but with a large hall. On a scale of one to ten, how terrified is Levitt of the task ahead? “Not so much terror,” she says, smiling, “but more a low-level anxiety, which is around a Seven.

“The gift I have that reduces the terror is that it’s not fully my season. The plays we’re putting on, apart from one or two, had already been commissioned before Covid.” She laughs; “Ask me again in January when I’ll have picked all of the plays.”

Levick also knows Oran Mor inside and out, having already directed “eight or nine” plays for Play Pie and a Pint. “I’ve also co-produced a few with Oran Mor when I was at Dundee. And I’ve seen lots over the years.”

Her enthusiasm for the job is palpable. “The challenge and joy of this place is the purity of it. You need to have good stories, and then present them. The audiences are up for being challenged, and we shouldn’t be afraid to make them think, but we have to be kind to them.

“What I want to do this season is watch the audiences. They tell you where you need to go next.”

The audiences are mixed. There are students, there is the retirement community. There is a middle group who squeeze in lunchtime fun.

What makes London-born Levick’s critical eyebrows lift? “I love a really good laugh,” she says. “I love a play that takes you on a journey. And I didn’t grow up with musicals but I love plays with songs in them. I want to give people a good time, or a good cry, if there’s a catharsis in that.”

Levick is honest enough to admit she’s not a panto expert. But she’s ambitious and determined to make sure the new plays are scrutinised and water-tight before going into rehearsals.

The season certainly offers some teasing prospects; there’s Mona Pearson’s surreal dark comedy, there’s the story of footballer, Rose Reilly. And Johnny McKnight will reveal a new play, Joke, which raises question of wokery in the workplace.

“There are other delights. Andy McGregor has written a mini musical, A New Life, which features a tap-dancing baby – and asks how hard can it be to have a child.”

Meanwhile, Dave Anderson has written a new musical. And Morna Young has written The Silver Superheroes, about a couple of retired superheroes who live in the north east, and have been pensioned out.

And Frankie Vaughan will appear once again on the Glasgow stage, thanks to Kim Miller’s musical recreation, Mr Moonlight.

That sums up the flavour and intent of the lunchtime theatre; to provoke, to incite laughter, heaps of comedy and pathos. And a panto at the end of it all.

But what of the greatest villain ever to impact upon theatre in modern times – Covid? “Well, I think I’m on my seventh draft of Covid procedures right now,” says the theatre boss. “It’s all about how we look after the public and the staff. And we are determined to get things moving again.

“We are going to cap the capacity at 100, so there will be a metre distance between them.”

The theatre will run at a loss on those numbers, losing a potential 100 people each performance, but the loss will be underwritten by the cultural funding available.

“I think this is what we have to do,” says Levick, “We are ready to be back indoors, but we need to build up confidence.

“As a sector we are very fragile. But I really believe we have to keep going. And Play, Pie and a Pint, with its format, can do that.”

What that means, for example, should an actor come down with Covid and the theatre has to close for a week, that can be negotiated. Larger theatres, with much higher pre-production costs and much larger casts, don’t have such flexibility.

So it all looks positive. But don’t expect any onstage kissy-kissy however. “Not unless the actors are part of the same household,” she says, smiling. “But there are lists of actors who are in relationships. So that may be an option.”

But what of Jemima Levick’s mum? It transpires she became a successful children’s writer – her name is Vivien French. “She certainly knows how to tell a story. Even when she had the bucket on the head.”

Play Pie and a Pint opens with Celestial Body, September 6-11. Then Rose, by Lorna Martin, from Monday, September 13, to Sat September 18

 

Theatre review

Celestial Body

Oran Mor, Glasgow

Mary Brennan

Three stars

Pies heated and waiting to be plated up? Check! Pints ready to be pulled? Check! Plays? After months of lockdown, are there really plays lining up in the wings? Indeed there are - twelve of them, with Morna Pearson’s Celestial Body the first on-stage in this welcome return of Oran Mor’s lunchtime showcase of new one-act works.

So who - or what - is the ‘celestial body’ that threads through Pearson’s noir-ish comedy? For Laura (Neshla Caplan) it’s her star sign, Pisces - and the horoscopes she dials up on her phone. Whatever the creepy-sounding, supposedly psychic voices say, Laura hears and obeys. When Hamish (Samuel Pashby) arrives to fix her washing machine, we get the impression that Laura’s interest in him is a matter of singleton lust - Hamish, you see, is a gym regular and his toned’n’ honed physique might well be the ‘celestial body’ in question. Bruce (Ross Mann) knows - and avidly admires - Hamish’s fab abs and effortless hefting of weighty dumb-bells: he’s joined the same gym to get similarly fit in order to recapture his wife’s affection. Fat chance, you think - Bruce is distinctly weedy, and he does seem overkeen to get close up and personal with Hamish…

To fill in any more details would give away a plot that’s frankly on the puny side. The cast, however, briskly keep up appearances - gosh! what a surprise for them (if not necessarily for us) that when they do meet, they turn out to have circumstances in common. This is where the jokes disappear and the dark side to Laura and Bruce’s interest in Hamish emerges. True to the spirit of a Play, a Pie and a Pint, I won’t give the final punchline away…

A new seating layout is in place, by the way - otherwise it feels like old times at PPP.