Writer: Linda Duncan McLaughlin in collaboration with In Cahootz
Directors: Kate Black & Annmarie Strain
Taking as its inspiration Glasgow 850, the year-long birthday celebration of the town. In Cahootz Creative Citizens have, in collaboration with playwright Linda Duncan McLaughlin, created a brand new play in celebration of all that’s fantastic about being a Weegie.
The work is a mixture of the group’s cultural strolling excursions, their 2024 exhibition and materials gleaned from their outreach workshops with Glasgow’s Recovery Community. The workshops explored the connection with the town and what it meant to the members and the town’s landmarks that had essentially the most that means, hoping that the play would encourage its’ audiences to discover additional.
The People’s Place takes the type of an unofficial (and definitely unorthodox) strolling tour, highlighting the well-known, not so well-known and downright notorious better of the town. It begins with a promenade via the venue to the auditorium the place we start our “tour”. While on the tour, Kim, Alex, Jo-Jo, Mags and Dee come to the help of outdated pal Stevo who’s returned from a 20 12 months sojourn in Spain to be able to proper an outdated mistaken.
There are stops at The Necropolis, the place the statues of the town’s nice and good come to life; The story of The Barras based by Maggie McIver, simply one among numerous sturdy Glasgow girls whose tales are featured right here, one other being Mary Barbour and her half within the now forgotten Glasgow Rent Strikes of 1915; we’re taken to Jim Lambie’s Album Pathway simply off The Barrowlands, celebrating the musical giants who’ve performed on its hallowed stage; the city legend of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum is debunked, to the Riverside Museum to the banks of the Clyde and its beating coronary heart design.
The motion is punctuated by some acquainted tunes: I Fought the Law and Bad Romance with some absolute crackers written by the group members, John, Paul, Bobby Jo and Gordon. Each unique music encapsulates not solely the spirit of the folks concerned however the metropolis itself.
The feeling from the entire endeavour is inclusive, spirited, joyous, heat, welcoming and simply down proper bloody good – similar to the town itself and In Cahootz as a collective. They by no means fail to place a smile in your face and heat your coronary heart. They don’t stray away from the ugly reality however ship all of it with such ardour and coronary heart that you could’t fail to be moved.
Reviewed on 1 March 2025 | Image: In Cahootz
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