Book launch in Edinburgh

If any of the Caithness exiles in the Edinburgh area can manage,George Gunn will be down for the southern launch of "Atomic City" and "Egil,Son of the Night Wolf".It's at the Storytelling Centre in the Netherbow Theatre on the Royal Mile,on Saturday 25 September,7pm.

The article's from the Hi-Arts website :

‘RENEWABLE THEATRE’ – Unique Caithness Book Launch & Topical Drama Performance
15 September 2010

This weekend (18 September 2010) Caithness Horizons in Thurso has found a unique way of celebrating the launch of two plays by writer George Gunn. ‘Egil, Son of the Night Wolf’ and ‘Atomic City’ were both produced and toured in Scotland just over 10 years ago by Caithness-based Grey Coast Theatre Company. Fairplay Press has now included both plays in their publication list, and Caithness Horizons will host their Highland launch on Saturday 18th September 2010. To reflect the impact George Gunn has made nationally as a writer of both drama and poetry, and as an artist who has always petitioned for the arts in Scotland to include folk culture at a grass roots level, the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh will hold its own event – entitled Caithness Horizons -to launch the plays the week after, on Saturday 25th September 2010.

To create a book launch with a difference, Caithness Horizons invited the playwright to spend a week with a director, two professional actors and local community actors, doing what they all do best – creating an original performance for the special night. Firstly, actors Brian Smith and Helen Mackay will perform rehearsed readings from ‘Egil, Son of the Night Wolf’ and ‘Atomic City’, bringing to life once more some of the host of characters who first paced the boards a decade ago. The second part of the evening will be a first-performance of a completely fresh piece of drama created ‘on the hoof’ at Caithness Horizons by George Gunn over the course of this week, working closely with director Iain MacDonald and constructed round an ensemble of community actors, most of whom have worked with Grey Coast Theatre Company in the past.

Although not a performance venue as such, Caithness Horizons – a state-of-the-art museum and exhibition space which dramatically transformed Thurso’s old town hall less than two years ago - has already hosted an original Scottish Opera project with Eden Court, and an amateur youth theatre production.

‘Using the heritage and culture of Caithness creatively is fundamental to our existence,’ says the museum’s education and community officer, Christine Russell. ‘This project has been funded by the Highland Council’s Highland Culture Programme, and it’s all part of taking the cultural life of our unique part of the Highlands forward into the future, while at the same time bearing witness to our connection with the past. The two plays being launched on Saturday are very different in setting, character and themes, but both portray aspects of what we would recognize as our part in the history of civilization. That might seem to some an almost comical over-exaggeration, but the story of the Viking impact on Europe and the story of a fishing-farming community in the Highlands becoming the site of the white heat of nuclear experimentation are surely topics of historical as well as social significance. Our role at Horizons is to help explain where Caithness fits into the world. Heritage isn’t just fusty facts. It needs interpretation and imagination, and that’s what Renewable Theatre is all about.’

George Gunn himself is clear about his role as a writer. Excited about the publication of two plays, he is also concentrated on the other matter in hand of creating a new dramatic commentary on events in his native Caithness. As the nuclear history of Caithness makes way for the fresh possibilities of renewable energy, George Gunn agrees that the writer’s role is to look ahead.

‘All theatre is renewable human energy, so it’s fitting to mark the publication of these two plays, which deal with different aspects of energy, with an examination of what renewable energy actually is . ‘Egil’ is set during a period when the political ambitions of the Vikings in the 10th-century changed the shape of Europe; and ‘Atomic City’ charts the coming of the nuclear industry to Caithness. Now with the renewable sector set to fill the energy gap between hydro-carbons and nuclear, Caithness seems set to enter an interesting new era of development, and it is right and proper that theatre – of all the arts - should concern itself with such a subject. Whether tidal or wind energy, both will be important economic generators for the county and the country.’

The metaphor of ‘Renewable Theatre’ extends to the creative team who will work with George Gunn over this week. Brian Smith memorably played the title role in Egil in the original 1998 production, and is looking forward to reprising the role. Fellow actor Helen Mackay first met the writer as an undergraduate drama student at North Highland College, before going on to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama to complete her BA. Director Iain MacDonald also studied with George, before completing his studies at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. Currently also working as assistant director on Dogstar Theatre Company’s touring play ‘Jacobite Country’, ‘Renewable Theatre’ will be his last production before continuing his studies as a postgraduate of an MA in Drama Directing at Bristol Old Vic at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

‘Having just graduated, it is fantastic and very fitting that one of my first jobs is with George Gunn of Grey Coast fame. George has invested a lot of time with me as a student; his constant support has shaped my theatrical outlook and will continue to do so in my future career. This project will bring together a community and help our stories be recognised on a much wider cultural level.’

This recycling of local talent is key to George Gunn’s philosophy of a theatre for the people and by the people. Donald Smith, director of the Scottish Storytelling Centre which is hosting the second launch event in Edinburgh, is clear about how George Gunn has helped make sure that Caithness – far as it is from the likes of the Edinburgh Festival - cannot be ignored as a cultural backwater:

'The Scottish Storytelling Centre is proud to be celebrating Caithness and Sutherland. In particular we are inspired by its contemporary writers and musicians, not least George Gunn, whose achievements have put the North back on the literary map, with style. The incredible thing is that people down here know very little about the cultural riches of Caithness - we're just trying to broaden their horizons.'

Caithness Horizons already has quotes from George Gunn’s poetry displayed as part of its permanent museum exhibition. ‘Renewable Theatre’ will be an evening to celebrate the writer’s contribution to Scottish theatre, but will also be a demonstration of his commitment to the culture of Caithness, whatever the future holds. The Chorus which speaks the epilogue of ‘Atomic City’ might also be voicing George Gunn’s own credo of the limitless resourcefulness of the planet generally, and of Caithness in particular:
‘One: And still the barley grows

Two: And still the fish do swim

Three: And rain

Four: And wind

Five: And summer sun

Four: And wind

Three: And rain

Two: And fish

One: And barley

All: Atomic City make.’
Source: Caithness Horizons

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