A Hoose Huband's Dramaturgy: Stuart Thomas on Writing Hoosewives

What was the inspiration for the Hoosewives in the first instance  - and now for the wedding?
I find reality TV to be endlessly fascinating, and the chance to have fun with it (in both shows) was too good to miss out on. Taking the tropes and spoofing them was an inspiration in itself.

Will there be a trilogy?
The characters have lots of juice left in them and the audiences love the shows, so anything is possible.

How do you go about writing the script: did you take into account the cast, or present a play to them?
I wrote specifically for most of the actors involved. I've written roles for most of them in the past.

Does your script sit within any tradition?
Scottish variety -- it's a rich, multi-facated form of entertainment and I hope the Hoosewives contribute to this tradition, as it's a form of theater I love, and I'm very proud to write in that vein.

Does the pavilion and the audience lead you to write in a particular way?
Absolutely -- this show and the first one are/were tailor-made for the big warm vocal audience at the Pavilion

Are there any surprises in this show that would not be expected from Hoosewives?
I think the characters go a bit further in this one, both in terms of humour and in terms of character...

Are you involved much in the rehearsal process?
I live in San Francisco, so my role is limited to responding to requests if certain scenes or lines need reworked. 

What - or who - influences you as a playwright?
My family, friends, my experiences, and shows and plays and films that make me think, laugh or cry, or all at the same time.

Hoosewife Dramaturgy: Alyson Orr on A Wee Wedding

Wee Fat Glesga Wedding -- Our Biggest Smash since ‘Mrs Brown’ is back and it’s better than ever!

Yes, The Real Hoosewives Fae Glesga are back on stage this February with a revival of the sell-out sequel to the hit show that’s become ‘Theatre Legend’ (Evening Times) and is ‘Box Office Gold’ (Herald)!!

What part do you play in Wee Glasgae…?
Alyson Orr: I play the part of Barbara. She is from Bearsden and has ideas above her station. She thinks she is a cut above but it's all show and looks down on the other girls. She sees herself as the leader of the group.

You've been in quite a few productions at the Pavilion: do you think the theatre shows have a particular shared quality or flavour?
I have performed at the Pavilion for over 20 years and it's been a great experience. The audiences are truly unique - they're not afraid to enjoy themselves and really get involved in the shows. 

They are very much a Glasgow audience and I imagine they may be similar to the audiences when variety was king, say 40 or 50 years ago. People are there to have fun and be entertained - to forget real life for a few hours and to laugh,sing and dance if the mood takes them!

How did you prepare for the role?

I love Julie Walters and I think this is a part she would play really well so I imagine what she would do with it and that gets me started. I worry if she saw the show, she might say 'find your own performance!!"  I've given Barbara some specific mannerisms as she clearly thinks she still has it going on, despite being a bit older than some of the other characters. She thinks she's a real lady so I try and reflect that in how she holds herself. 

What reactions are you expecting from the audience?
I think they will love this! Lots of outrageous laughter, singing along with us and a bit of audience participation. I also think they will be absorbed in the story, as it's a piece about friendship and there are many groups of women who come to see it, who can relate to the characters.

Do I need to see the first one to understand what will happen this time?
No, this is stand alone show and some of the plot from the Real Hoosewives is explained in the sequel. The characters are well defined so you can get to know them in this show even if you haven't see the first.

Part Two picks up where the original left off, with the girls having chosen friendship over fame. No longer the toast of the telly, the Hoosewives are having a party to celebrate Donna Marie’s impending nuptials. 

No sooner have they downed their first Bacardi Breezers when the trouble starts, in the form of the villainous Carmela DuPont who made the girls household names in the first place – but at the expense of their friendship…

Will the Hoosewives succumb to the lure of fame and fortune?
Will Carmela succeed in tearing the girls apart ... again?
Will Donna Marie manage to get her man up the aisle?

All will be revealed in the show that’s been called “A Giant Hen Party with 1500 Women Having An Incredible Time” (Herald), “A Laugh A Minute Hoot” (The Reviews Hub), and ‘Outrageous!’ (Daily Record).

Starring Pavilion favourites Nicola Park, Alyson Orr, Sandra McNeeley, Michele Gallagher, Laura Szalecki, Nicola Auld, and Tyler Collins.  

Featuring the hits, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, “Dance Yourself Dizzy”, “Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad”, “9 to 5” and many more.

Don’t miss Wee Fat Glesga Wedding at the Pavilion Theatre from 3rd - 13th February 2016.

52 Shades of Maggie

See a Fight at The Pavilion

Although my usual beat is the hipster theatre underground - you know, I find anything with a script far too traditional - I have a real fondness for the Pavilion. The Celts in Seville  is coming up before then, but there is a big fight happening first...

I might be disappointed that they are billing it as 'family friendly,' but the thought of British Wrestling in the Pavilion's rather grand auditorium is thrilling. And they've got two wrestlers - Grado & Jack Jester - who were on TV this week (the programme was called Insane Fight Club, which might give a flavour of their grapple technique).

The real reason that I love the wrestling, though, is that it gives me a chance to catch up with the career of Joe Coffey. Coffey was the 'heel' in Rob Drummond's Wrestling, an event that mixed up hipster underground theatre, a written script and tough guys having a fight in The Arches. I was sorry that he was defeated by Drummond in the climactic battle, and swear that was a fix.



Premier British Wrestling
Presents
An Evening of Family Friendly WrestlingOn Saturday 15th March @ 7.30 pm
We are knocking the stuffing out of this production with Tickets Prices - Adults £13.00, Children £11 or Family Tickets from as little as £18.

The Pantosphere

This man is the King of the Palace, Kilmarnock

It's December and the theatres are committed to a popular art form. Aside from the odd resistance from the cabaret community - there's Torture Garden and Missy Malone's burlesque evening and the more experimental artists of Anatomy - it's either pantomimes or, for the more sophisticated families, the Christmas themed entertainment.

The bursts of cabaret make sense: sharing the heritage of vaudeville with pantomime, they can take advantage of a lively audience in need of warmth and fun in the darkness months. On the west coast of Scotland, however, the dominance of pantomime has led to each of the different venues finding their own, distinctive version. The King's Theatre has the slick, professional show - now challenged by the SECC - the Tron gives it a Glaswegian twist, now teaming up with Johnny McKnight after years of Forbes Masson scripts - and the Pavilion is the anarchic, slightly risque remix: Jim Davidson might not be in it this year, but his appearance for two years does explain the tone and target audience.

The changing face of pantomime

Despite these regional variations, pantomime is innately conservative: there are a variety of set-pieces (in Kilmarnock, Liam Dolan has been rewriting similar scenes into different plots for eight years), the jokes are supposed to be bad and the audience interaction is ritualistic. A bad pantomime is marked by the failure of the cast to get these routines swinging. The usual parameters of good theatre - remembering lines, strong characterisation, consistent pace and structure - are replaced by the need to make sure that the audience are disruptive in the right way.

In a recent interview with The Skinny, McKnight pointed out that many of the tropes of pantomime are shared with the sort of performance emerging from the Live Art scene. Brecht's rejection of "the fourth wall" is mirrored by pantomime's emphasis on direct engagement with the audience. In much the same way as Beggar's Opera reminds the audience that it is a fiction, the constant slipping in and out of character, the bit where some cute kids are dragged on-stage and the dispensation of sweeties from the stage make pantomime more like a game, or the Mass.

Perhaps the most disappointing consequence of this conservatism is that the potential of pantomime as a purposeful theatre has been neglected. Its carnivalesque spirit allows it to poke fun at authority: the Pavilion pantomime has the occasional shot at the council and gets very close to sectarian humour (although to laugh at the rivalries rather than to harvest the rich fields of nasty bigotry), and the Tron, in the Masson years, had a habit of mocking the other, rival shows. Yet even in the most parochial pantomimes, there's no attempt to give the details a satirical bite.

The conservatism of the form, then, is mirrored by a social conservatism. If political theatre is coming into its own again, the pantomime isn't joining in. It's a good example, perhaps, of how popularity can limit ambition: having discovered a good product, theatres seem unwilling to risk extending the form or content.

This isn't absolute - McKnight's increasing presence on the festive scene brings the sensibilities of his Random Accomplice work, and the Lyceum, The Citizens, The Traverse, and the National Theatre of Scotland (with their Christmas Carol) all present plays that are more closely connected to their usual output. However, these might be examples of how a niche can be found in the Christmas market.

He's enjoying imself

Given its long history - it goes back to classical times, through medieval mummers' plays and to the music hall - its surprising how little influence pantomime has beyond its own month. There are few examples of pantomime influencing theatre, even though its techniques aren't especially divorced from contemporary practice and it achieves audiences that most most companies envy.

A few exceptions aside - Ali Maloney did a grotesque pantomime last year at Arches Live, and I, Tommy slid from political satire into broad comedic antics pretty quickly - pantomime feeds the theatre neither with audiences nor ideas. It seems to exist in a splendid isolation, preserving the traces of music hall (Johnny Mac at the Pavilion has the genuine aura of a 1930s comedian, catch-phrase like a twitch at the end of every sentence), 1970s humour and the belief in entertainment that can be for all the family (with the odd "one for the dads").

Perhaps most importantly, pantomime is the one place where the Hegelian model of synthesis is played out in its most immediate format.

Oh, no, it isn't.

Oh yes, it is.

Oh no, it isn't.