' f‘
Jazzer and I
John Bymo (lot!) has been
by Tony Cownle's side throughout rehearsals for the show in Aberdeen
Steve Cramer talks to Tutti Frutti’s director Tony Cownie about popular theatre, tragedies that look like comedies and cult stories of the 808.
t around the time you could see 'I'ulti I’rutti on television. you might also have been able to nip into a cinema to watch another cult classic of the era. Wit/mail um! I. The two pieces stand comparison for several reasons. Firstly. each has a distinct fin de siecle feeling. liach deals. in different ways. with the end of the liberal egalitarian dreams of the 1960s. The film does so through a transition to work and responsibility. where one character is left behind in a dying. dysfunctional drug-filled stupor. as one moves on to a career. In Tutti l’rutti. a rock band of the em find themselves in reduced circumstances in the ruthless. red in tooth and claw world of Thatcher‘s venal 1980s. More importantly though. both are hailed as
‘JOHN BYRNE'S WORKS ARE NOT NOSTALGIA PLAYS AT ALL,
l‘)7()s world of 'l‘hatcherism. the film by implication and the television series explicitly. It seems significant indeed that director 'l'ony (‘ownie has chosen to set the theatre version firmly in the 1980s for. though Blairism can be seen as simply a continuation of 'l'hatcherism by other means. the l‘)b’lls represents a more theatrical version of the social ravages of new right economics. This is perhaps becatise the 1980s introduced neo-conservatism. whereas Blairism has merely quietly normalised it.
But there is something else about the l‘)8(ls which makes it seem right for this adaptation; the era has now become the subject of nostalgia. something of which .lohn Byrne has been accused. and (‘ownie rightly refutes. ‘.\'o. .lohn Byrne‘s works are not nostalgia plays at all. they‘re incredibly insightful snippets of Sc‘oltislt life. He
THEY'RE INCREDIBLY INSIGHTFUL
SNIPPETS OF SCOTTISH LIFE'
great comedies when they are in fact tragedies. There can be few more affecting sights in modern British cinema than Withnail standing alone in the rain at the end of the film. reciting the Humle he'll no more play than Uncle Monty. while Tutti Frutti's finale is equally tragic. though I won‘t remind readers of it. for the sake of those who haven’t seen it. Director Tony Cownie is keen. too. to emphasise the differences between the perception and reality of John Byrne‘s cult classic: ‘People say it‘s a comedy. but it's absolutely not. It‘s very funny. I‘m not saying it isn't. but it’s really a tragedy. One person dies at the beginning and two more people die as it goes to its end. It‘s the truth that makes you laugh though. so it's also very funny.‘ he says.
Each piece keys significantly in to the post-
22 THE LIST 7—21 Sep 2006
past and kind of gives it a broad brash stroke. and somehow manages to create a complete picture of what Scotland is and was. and what it means to be Scottish. lle evokes a kind of indescribable feeling of what the nation is. We‘re lucky to have a writer like him.‘
(‘ownie himself is on the crest of a wave. After ten years as a director. with a succession of acclaimed productions to his credit. this affable. likeahle man whose passion for theatre drips from his pores is engaged in the N'I‘S' first major engagement with popular theatre. albeit of a very intelligent kind. After the successes of Realism and Black Him-Ii this is a quite different kind of piece. but Cownie is quick to dispel any misconceptions. ‘I don‘t understand this snobber that comes with the term “popular theatre".‘ he says. ‘Surely if theatre is popular. that‘s goodf In (‘ownie's hands. this project looks potentially better than just good.