BLAS Festival

Angus MacPhee with Joyce Laing. Photo: Time Neat

Well, it's Angus - Weaver of Grass time once more! The BLAS Festival have now uploaded their website, full of exciting events, at http://www.blas-festival.com/ , and tickets are for sale for this through their site. Its a great opportunity to see and hear some of the best Gaelic singers around and, of course, catch up with our show in the Highland Region. 

Esther will be putting, on our own website, a more-or-less complete itinerary for our 2013 tour any time now - look out for this at http://www.horseandbamboo.org/angus/ going to ITINERARY on the right hand column. 

Tickets are also on-sale for the Edinburgh Fringe shows, again at the wonderful Scottish Storytelling Centre. Go to https://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/theatre/angus-weaver-of-grass 

All of this activity brings it home - work on freshening up the masks, set and puppets for the show starts here very, very soon.

Debbie

We can finally announce that we've asked Debbie McKay to join the Angus team for the tour this year. Debbie will replace Mairi Morrison in the role of the narrator. Esther is busy writing the contract at this very moment, (and I've discovered Debbie's Facebook page and sneaked the above photo from it). 

Debbie is originally from Lewis, and now lives in Inverness where she works as Gaelic Drama Worker with Feisean Nan Gaidheal - a Gaelic organisation who take Gaelic Theatre in Education to schools. She is currently touring with Daibhidh Walker in Seonaidh a' Mhonaidh (John of the Moors) as part of Scotland's Year of Nature.

So Debbie now completes our 2013 touring group, along with Jordanna O'Neill (below), Jonny Quick and Mark Whitaker. 

Auditioning the singers

Yesterday was spent at Sgoil Ghaidhlig Ghlaschu, the Glasgow Gaelic School, auditioning four young women Gaelic singers - originally it was planned to see five, but one dropped out the day before.

In all honesty I had been worrying about this. Partly because I knew Mairi Morrison would be a very hard act to follow, but also because the people we had to select from (i.e. the singers who had applied for the work) were quite small in number, and once I had dismissed non-Gaelic speakers and a couple of Irish Gaelic singers from the list, I was barely left with enough people to fill a day of auditioning. 

So Loz Kaye (our Music Director), Mairi Morrison (who developed this role last year), and myself arrived at the Gaelic School at 9 in the morning ready to set up. The first surprise was the school itself. In my mind it was going to be a small 'alternative' kind of place with perhaps 4 classrooms. How wrong could I be! It was a bustling, three-story, college-like building with a nursery right through to a senior school. Groups of smart-looking teenagers stood in groups chatting away in Gaelic and, once through the security and signed-in, we were shown to the top floor where we were given a drama studio for the day - along a corridor of other drama and theatre studios, with harps, keyboards, guitars, fiddles and accordions lined up ready for use.

Then the auditions. From the first I realised my worries were unfounded - and again, like the auditions at CCA last year - I was immediately impressed by the quality, integrity and spirit  of the young singers in Gaelic in Scotland. It's truly humbling to see how this incredible heritage is being successfully passed on and being renewed by young people.  

We require a fine singer, but also someone who can communicate well through their story-telling and physical performing, which plays a very important part in the show. Finally we need to have someone totally at ease in Gaelic. All of the young women we auditioned had two of these attributes, often to a very high standard, but we need all three. So at the end of the day when the auditions were over it was an interesting discussion. Eventually a choice was made and we finished for the day - exhilarated and pleased by the way things had unfolded. 

So thank you Melissa, Elspeth, Debbie and Catherine. You all gave really well of yourselves - we were seriously impressed. But a decision had to be made - we would have loved to have had all of you - and so by now the emails have gone out to you. Mòran taing.

Welcome to Jordanna

Our first auditions went very well. Alison, Jonny Quick and I auditioned six performers - most of whom had travelled from London or further to Rossendale for the privilege (!). All were very good, but we ended having to make a decision between two we felt to be quite exceptional. In the end we chose Jordanna O'Neill, who travelled from Edinburgh but who is originally from Shetland. Jordanna also plays fiddle, so who knows - maybe some fresh takes on the music this year too?

At the end of this week it's more music - Loz Kaye and I travel up to Glasgow to meet up with Mairi Morrison to try and find her replacement. This is going to be interesting - anyone who saw Angus - Weaver of Grass last year will know how much Mairi stamped her personality and style on the songs and narrative in the show. We're seeing five singers in one day. Keep your fingers crossed for us - I'll report back. 

Angus rides again

Back from a great break in Caceres, Spain, and it was straight into sorting through the 50  or so applications for audition to replace Fran Merriman in the 2013 tour of Angus. Good to see such a high quality of applicant - which means that it has been difficult selecting just the 7 candidates, and a number of really excellent performers had to be rejected because, after discussions with Esther, it's now clear that the person has to be a driver since we're touring with two vehicles. 

There's also the beginning of the tour itinerary appearing. For anyone interested Esther is putting it up on our website as things develop. 

Oidhche Challuinn

Of all the scenes in 'Angus - Weaver of Grass' that we researched, probably the most difficult to find information on was the Oidhche Challuinn. 

From the Silconglan website: "Described as the Eve of New Year's Day (it) was of supreme importance in the Highlands and Islands of the West and took precedence even over Christmas. It was a time of much ceremony and gaiety, but underneath the levity lies a sinister hint of the old ritual and sacrificial nature of the festival. The Eve of New Year was known as Oidhche Challuinn, and New Year's Day as La Challuinn.......Up to the beginning of the century at least, the festivities of New Year's Eve were fully in operation and people went round the houses....chanting special rhymes continuously.......The part of the hide used was the loose flap of the beasts neck; this was called in Gaelic caisean-uchd. This they used to singe in the fire and present it to the members of the family, each in turn; every member of the household was required to smell it as a charm against all things evil and harmful."

In our show the burning caisean-uchd was held over Angus, then about to go off to war, and it flickered as if to be extinguished. His friends blow at it and revive the smouldering sheepskin. I intended it as a kind of presentiment of what was about to befall Angus.

Anyway, looking at the Island of Berneray Community website I found the photograph above and a brief description of the events that took place this year on January 12th, using painted cardboard box masks.

More auditions

We've now set up auditions for the second replacement for 'Angus - Weaver  of Grass' in 2013. This time for the singer and narrator, which means a fluent Gaelic speaker to replace Mairi Morrison, who has other commitments this year that prevent her from touring in the late summer. 

Just as with the other female role that we need this year the details of our requirements, and an application form can be found at http://www.horseandbamboo.org/auditions/ . The closing date is April the 24th, and auditions will be in Glasgow on May 3rd....