Edinburgh International Book Festival: Mr Gray, His Life and His Play

Artist, novelist and playwright (amongst many other things) Alasdair Gray has two events at the Book Festival this year. We caught up with the man himself for a quiet word about what to expect

Feature by Keir Hind | 04 Aug 2011

Interviewing Alasdair Gray is great fun. He takes the time to warm up the interview by first asking himself questions: “ ‘Mr Gray, is there any truth that you worked as a lift boy in The Kremlin?’ - That’s a damned slander, and you can’t prove anything! But yes, it is true…. ‘And what about the Vatican Mr Gray?’ - There’s no record of that! But, ah, yes, there too…”

His elevatorial credentials sorted, we move on to more pressing matters, such as his Skinny-sponsored event. “The idea is that the event will be based around A Life In Pictures, and I’ll present a talk and have electronic slides to illustrate it as it goes along,” he says. “They’ve been trying to talk me into having someone doing the event with me, but I think that I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself.” I ask him then how looking back on his life feels – does it feel like 30 years since Lanark was published? “Well, no,” he says “but then nothing that far away seems like that to me. At this moment, it feels like yesterday that Lanark was published, or Poor Things, or that I met my wife Morag. I suppose a lot of the past seems very close, or at least in my memory it does.”

Given that it’s Lanark’s anniversary, I decide to at least try and ask an original question about the book – so I go for one about whether it was difficult to persuade a publisher to use his designs for the look of it. “No, because an illustrated page only costs as much as a typed one,” he says. That’s my question stuffed then. Thankfully, he goes on: “The difficulty was getting the thing published at all in the first place!” he says. “The idea for those came when I was in the reading room of The British Library, and saw illustrations of a sort that appealed to me in Emblem books. I’ve since discovered that Glasgow University has a collection of them too, but I didn’t know that at the time. But I thought that I’d like illustrations like them at the start of my books, so I took the idea from there.”

Gray also tells me about his other event, a full performance of his play. “I wrote this play, Fleck, “ he says “which is my version of Faust although it departs from the plot as it nears the ending, and I thought it was rather good. I sent it to a number of theatrical companies, but none of those wanted to put it on. I thought this was a shame, so I’ve been performing extracts of it at events I’ve done across the country.” Part of the problem is that actors can’t double parts, because at one point there are 12 people on stage. To perform it at the festival, most of the parts will be filled by other writers – Will Self, Liz Lochhead, A.L. Kennedy, Aonghas MacNeacail, and many others. “After this,” Gray says “I doubt I’ll perform in it again, and I just hope a theatre company will take it up.” I hope so too.

Postscript: Authors have an annoying habit of saying something fascinating right after the tape goes off. Alasdair Gray was no exception. This is from memory, so consider it completely a paraphrase; Somehow, the subject of Shakespeare came up, and Gray said “I think the reason we don’t know that much about Shakespeare was probably that he wasn’t that interesting a man. There are, of course, very eccentric artists who are creatively gifted, but most great artists, in all fields, are probably quite dull and just get on with their work.” I include this because I found the sentiment interesting, and generally agreed with it. Apart from that, I’ll let readers add their own comments.

Alasdair Gray will be appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival at 11.30 on Sat 13 Aug. Tickets £10/£8

Fleck will be performed in the RBS Main Theatre on Mon 29 Aug, 8pm. The cast will include Rodge Glass, Alasdair Gray, A L Kennedy, David MacLennan, Ian Rankin, Will Self, Zoë Strachan and Louise Welsh

http://www.edbookfest.co.uk