The Performance Geography of Glasgow, The West End

Although the West End of Glasgow is dominated by the University, it has fewer theatres: The Oran Mor on Byres Road is home to A Play, A Pie and A Pint, a lunchtime season of new works which has successfully exported its format around Scotland, but has only sporadic touring companies (most recently, The Sam Shepherd Roadshow did a few nights); The Cottier’s, with a troubled history of opening and closing; Webster’s Theatre, a recently converted church.

Despite this, the West End is a vibrant hub for the arts, not least due to its annual Festival, which brings together music, performance and comedy during July and makes extensive use of

Cottier’s for both its Chamber Music project and informal plays. The Cottiers was also the location for the Glasgow Cabaret Festival in 2011. Its success, however, has led to expansion and , Pete Sneddon of SCENEGINEERING explained in The Evening Times (10/4/2014) that ‘we plan to… is utilise Cottier’s as more of an event space, for concerts and weddings, which allows us to develop Webster’ as a theatre complex.’ Indeed, the popular pantomime has been transferred from Cottier’s for December 2014.

The programming at Cottier’s and Webster’s does not follow the mainstream of Glasgow’s city centre, but offers space for smaller companies, often outwith the touring circuits or as part of other festivals. 

A Play, A Pie and A Pint, however, has established a clear identity.

Now in its twenty-first season, it was founded by David MacLennan in 2004. Running for an hour at lunchtime, it offers a new play every week, and has a loyal audience. Authors featured range from the established - Rona Munro, David Greig and David Harrower have all contributed - through Glasgow favourites such as Kieran Hurley, AJ Taudevin and Gary McNair - to emerging names like Sylvia Dow. 

Despite the high turnover of plays, and an emphasis on the script, many successes have begun their life here: most recently, Peter Arnott’s Full Tilt (directed by Cora Bissett and exploring the life of Janis Joplin through a concert format) transferred to the Edinburgh Fringe. 

A Play, A Pie and A Pint has become the most energetic producer of new plays in Scotland: the supportive audience, the company’s willingness to take risks on young writers and the week long runs are attractive - even Untitled, a well established Scottish company, have presented a ‘classic cut’ of Hamlet - and the long seasons ensure that there are plenty of opportunities.

More From the Beard at Cottier's

Daniel's Beard - one of the groups behind the Cottier's Chamber Project - has suggested a solution to my terror at trying to catch everything in the festival: I take time off work. Unfortunately, since my job involves going to see stuff, taking the fortnight off work would mean tidying my house and not going to concerts or theatres. So I'll list a few more events for people who have a life, and might like to augment it.

It is inevitable that the referendum vote is making its presence felt, even at a music festival. And so, there will be an In Conversation session, where several prominent arts journalists will be discussing the directions that Scotland's cultural world might take following the referendum vote in September.

I might try to attend this, since I probably better work on having some kind of opinion. But I am more excited about Daniel's Beard getting down with the Currie and Quirk Shostakovich Series - a cycle of all 15 of Shostakovich's string quartets (other quartets are available in this sequence, including the Maxwell Quartet, Fejes Quartet, Edinburgh Quartet and Glasgow String Quartet).

And there's a showing of the film about old people doing music, A Late Quartet, (with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Christopher Walken), at The Grosvenor cinema. And there is some dance action programmed...

In the meantime, here's The Beard in action...

The Cottier Chamber Project

I tend to find the West End Festival (June) hard work: it is not so much curated as a series of different strands, making it very difficult to navigate. Fortunately, some of those strands are dynamic and coherent - which brings us to The Cottier Chamber Project.

Having said that, 43 events in 14 days makes it difficult to keep up...

The big thing with festivals is having a theme (I hear T in the Park is going with Deconstructing Liveness, while David Greig has got his own festival). The CCP is going for Identity, which is one of those nice post-modern ideas that is very open and fashionable. It can be all about personal identity (plus points for religious or racial) or social identity. The lunchtime series of JS Bach numbers (free, too) might shape up to create a picture of the Big Man's musical identity.

The identity of chamber music gets a nice twist - there's even music that I understand this time: tango, with Mr McFall's Chamber, Shostakovich's string quartets (my apprenticeship in ballet made his sound very familiar), some jazz (Martin Kershaw) and a bit of storytelling from Jenna and Bethany Reid, klezmer from Moishe's Bagel and folk from the  Alastair Savage Trio.

6 - 29 June 2014

Tickets will be on sale online from  or by telephone on 0333 666 3366 (9-7 Mon-Fri, 9-5 Sat) from 5th March 2014. In-person sales will take place at our box office in Hillhead Library, which will be open 9am-5pm Mon-Sat for the months of May and June.

Cottier’s Theatre: 93-95 Hyndland Street, Glasgow. G11 5PU
Hunterian Art Gallery: University of Glasgow, 82 Hillhead Street, Glasgow. G12 8QQ
St Silas Church: 69 Park Road, Glasgow. G4 9JE