YOU’RE out of luck if you haven’t already secured a ticket for Granite, the National Theatre of Scotland’s latest production.
The show telling the story of Aberdeen has sold out every seat in record time.
In a bid to meet demand the company even put on extra standing tickets. They too went super quick.
To cope with the frenzied interest in the show, producers are going to allow an audience into the dress rehearsal tomorrow.
What makes this even more remarkable is that the show is performed entirely outdoors. In a city not normally associated with open-air theatre.
For just three nights, hundreds of Aberdonians will gather in the quadrangle of Marischal College for the finale of a project years in the making. The theatre company provides the infrastructure but ultimately the show is put together by locals. Writer Peter Arnott’s role has been to do little more than help pull together the script suggested by the company. Professional actors Alan McHugh and Joyce Falconer, both of whom come from Aberdeen, lead a cast made up of the city’s am-dram companies, pensioners groups, and amateur dancers.
At the last count more than a 100 locals were involved.
Central to Granite is the story of James Bisset, a stone cutter from Kemnay who, in the 1860s, packed up his fiddle and his book of Burns and took his family to Odessa in the Crimea. He taught the locals his trade and shared with them his leftwing politics. The Tsarist authorities, not best pleased, kicked Bisset out, forcing him, his wife and children to walk home to Aberdeen. For the rest of his days he was known in the city as the “Rooshan”.
The play moves from there to the present day, taking in key moments in Aberdeen’s history, like the Dons’ Cup Winners’ Cup triumph in 1983 up to the oil boom then the downturn of the present day.
For director Simon Sharkey there’s one constant in all the tales told in the show. “At the heart of Aberdeen’s story is the granite, the grit and the glint,” he says. “It’s a tough stone – durable, beautiful, hard-won. But it’s got that mica in it. The glint, the poetry, the song.”
Just five years ago, with crude oil at $115 a barrel, the city was booming. Now the city faces its second year of downturn. Oil dropped to $30 a barrel in January. Last year, 65,000 jobs were lost in the industry, and recently one oil boss predicted another 45,000 gone by the end of 2016. It’s not just the industry that’s hurting, but also bars, restaurants, hotels and hairdressers – everyone is feeling the pinch.
Cast member Kirsty Falconer, a final year acting student at Aberdeen College, says it’s impossible to ignore. “There is an atmosphere in town just now because of what’s happening with the oil industry, a sort of underlying ‘Aberdeen’s not doing very well’ attitude.”
Granite, she says, could “really boost the morale in the city and make people reflect and know that they come from somewhere with such a strong history. Such exciting times are happening with something like this coming to Aberdeen and selling out.
“Hopefully, it’s something to boost the city and, hopefully, leave a bit of a legacy because it is going to be so huge.”
For Sharkey, who is also one of the National Theatre of Scotland’s Associate Directors, this question of what the show leaves behind is vital.
“This biggest legacy will be the possibility. There’s a really vibrant amateur sector up here. And very accomplished. What we’re hoping to do is demonstrate the potential. We’ve got a cast of professional actors working alongside community. And when you put a bit of investment and expertise into something it shows what the possibility is.”
In years to come, Granite, he says will be a reference point, those involved can point to the show and say “we did this”.
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