Joe Douglas on taking The Cheviot... on tour

Ahead of a new touring production of John McGrath’s revered play, The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil, The Skinny talks to its director, Joe Douglas, about the play, the current political climate and the future of culture in Scotland.

Feature by Amy Taylor | 31 Aug 2016

“Yeah, I am apprehensive,” begins Joe Douglas, when I ask him if, maybe, the seemingly impossible task of reviving and touring one of the most important Scottish plays of the 20th century, The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil, has maybe, perhaps, made him a little bit nervous?

“People put so much on the play, so much thought on the production, it belongs to the country, it belongs to Scotland, it belongs to the people of Scotland and for anyone to approach it, you’re setting yourself up for a bit of a kicking from people.”

He continues, “Some people think it’s passé. I was chatting to a guy in the pub actually, who went, 'Oh you’re up at the Rep are you? Oh, that’s great, oh yeah, they did this shite thing about crofters…' It’s never going to be everyone’s cup of tea, you’ve just got to accept that, but there is that extra bit of pressure with The Cheviot; it is owned by so many people.”

The History of The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil

It’s mid-July and when we speak, Douglas – the Associate Artistic Director of The Dundee Repertory Theatre – is knee deep in rehearsals, not just for his revival of John McGrath’s 1973 musical drama, but also Mark Thomas’s The Red Shed, which would later go on to win a Fringe First.

The director was first introduced to The Cheviot, which speaks of the history and tragedy of the Highland Clearances of the 18th century, by one of his lecturers at drama school.

Performed as a traditional ceilidh, with quick jumps between scenes that take the audience through several centuries' worth of Scotland’s history, the play looks back at the economic challenges that the country has faced, from the Highland Clearances, to the stag hunts of the 19th century, and also the more recent exploitation of the land during the North Sea Oil Boom in the late 20th century.  

Originally performed around Scotland by 7:84 theatre company – the creation of John McGrath and Elizabeth MacLennan, named after the statistic that 7% of the world's population owned 84% of the wealth – in 1973, the play was not toured professionally for over 20 years. The lack of a professional production meant that amateur productions of the play surfaced from time to time, but the original was still far from those that it meant to reach; the people. A film of a 1974 performance of the play, which featured shots of the cast on stage in the contemporary ceilidh setting, but also on location in period dress, eventually appeared on BBC Alba and later, YouTube.

In later years and noticable by its absence from the stage, The Cheviot had gone from McGrath's original vision of 'a good night out' to something of a theatrical legend, where even the mere mention of the name of the play astounded, and continues to impress Douglas.

“It’s such a brilliant title, it’s like, plays aren’t called that. You don’t call a play The Cheviot, The Stag and The Black, Black Oil! You don’t call anything that! It’s so bold! It says everything, because that’s what it is; it’s the Cheviot, the stag and the black, black oil. It’s so evocative, and it’s dangerous and it sounds really, really exciting.

“And there’s power in it – it speaks really directly, and really loudly, and really clearly about injustice,” he continues. “It speaks to the many different experiences of what it is to be Scottish, and the injustice of, particularly the rural communities, and the rural communities, they’ve all fed the industrial centres of Scotland, that’s the thing, it’s Scotland’s story.”

The power of the play meant that its initial run at the Dundee Rep last year was a complete success; shows sold out, tickets were hard to come by, the critics dished out 5-star reviews, and long after it finished there were calls for the play to tour around Scotland, as the original had done so many years before. But why had it taken so long to revive a play that is clearly still held in such high esteem in Scotland?

“I think there’s something, there’s that feeling of revisiting it or tampering with it in any way has been something... I think partly people are scared of it and I think partly they go, ‘It’s been done.’

The Cheviot is a story that makes Scotland and Scottish theatre, I think when something kind of holds that, and when it has memories... when you dust it off and give it a little shine and realise in 2015 there’s still truth to it, that’s really exciting.

“I think the real strength of the play,” muses Douglas, “is it tells all these stories and it shows all these examples of self-defiance; these acts where people have come together and resisted when something has been unjust in their lives.”

The Future of Culture in Scotland

Forty years since the premiere of The Cheviot, the play seems more relevant than ever, with the UK still reeling from Brexit, slashed budgets and the ongoing changes at the heart of the UK government, something, it seems, which is never far from Douglas' thoughts.

“I’m incredibly worried about cuts to budgets and buildings not taking risks, theatre buildings and gallery spaces and local cinemas, and culture becoming homogenised,” agrees Douglas. “I think, obviously, we need diversity and we need the plurality of voices, we’re a really diverse country, and we’re a really diverse state, as well.

“I think we need stories, I think there’s so much fear, and the politics has become a bit of a soap opera at the moment… We have to be really bold with stories that we tell, because reality is fucking mental, you know? Who would’ve thought a month ago, that we’d be in the situation that we find ourselves in?”

With the play opening at the Lyceum in September – where it was programmed by Clive Perry and Richard Eyre in 1973 – before going on a tour of various venues across Scotland, it seems likely that its themes will only get more timely with each passing day. In our current post-Indyref, post-Brexit society, hopefully the play can find a contemporary audience that, due to our current political climate, will be able to relate to its message and take home a message of hope.

"I think the real strength of the play is it tells all these stories and it shows all these examples of self-defiance; these acts where people have come together and resisted when something has been unjust in their lives and I think there’s... it’s that thing of saying, 'if you pull together you can change things' – why do we have to accept the status quo everyday? We are an evolving species, it’s part of evolution... it’s a very similar point, it’s a very similar message; work collectively for change."


The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil opens at The Dundee Rep on 31 Aug, then tours to The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, Eden Court Inverness, His Majesty's Theatre Aberdeen and Glasgow Citizens Theatre from 14 Sep 

http://cheviottour.co.uk/