Every moment her light was growing fainter; and he knew that if it went out she would be no more. “Do you believe?” he cried.

Peter Pan: JM Barrie

I wrote a brief tribute to Edinburgh International Festival’s haunting celebration of theatre for Sceptical Scot culture section – with a caveat: we in the audience must do more than clap to keep the performing arts alive. And then I read the thrilling call to action by playwright James Graham in the Financial Times and I wanted to run through the city streets shouting.

Not by the wildest stretch of imagination is this an elegy. Graham’s article throbs with urgency for theatre to seize the opportunity to ‘come back better’, to be at the heart of restoring a ‘common culture’. Not just ‘national treasures’ – “theatres outside London are not “regional”. They are our “national” theatres, in the places where the majority of us live.” That applies, of course, to every part of Scotland. Now back to Edinburgh…

With the lightest touch, David Greig raises the spirits of Peter Pan, Tinker Bell and their maker, JM Barrie, in the opening sequence of the National Theatre of Scotland’s magical haunting film My Light Shines On: Ghost Light.

A ghost light, in theatre lore, is the light left on by the last person to leave the building and switched off by the first to arrive. “Its constant illumination,” says NTS, “represents the enduring spirit of theatre in dark times.”  

In the 30 minute film by Hope Dickson Leach the light flickers through every nook and cranny of Edinburgh’s empty Festival Theatre, the old Empire on the Covid-cleared South Bridge which should be heaving at this time of year. It teases and tantalises Afton Moran’s Peter Pan, casts offstage shadows on Thierry Mabonga, throws a dazzling halo behind Siobhan Redmond performing Jackie Kay’s Waiting in the Wings. 

Afton Maron as Peter Pan in David Greig’s opening sequence for the National Theatre of Scotland’s Ghost Light, part of the My Light Shines On series.

Spellbound, you follow the trail round the building through dressing rooms, up lighting tower, along corridors, into foyer, cupboards, prompt room, and back on to the stage. As Thom Dibdhin’s fine review for the Stage observes, the NTS which has mastered the art of creating ‘theatre without walls’ now rallies us to the cause of buttressing those theatre walls by getting “right into the fabric of a theatre building – its bones, as it were.”

How to support this cause? Peter Pan knows how. Tink will survive if children believe in fairies. “If you believe,” he shouted, “clap your hands; don’t let Tink die.” Many clapped in JM Barrie’s version though “some beasts hissed”.  In Ghost Light, Aston Moran’s heart-tuggingly solitary, echoing clap seems to revive the waning Tinker Bell and we are drawn towards the morning light streaming through an opened window.

We can do more than clap

In real life we need to do more than clap. The EIF YouTube channel is filling with a treasure trove of talent: music, theatre, ballet.  There’s more still – poetry, dance, plays – via the NTS YouTube channel and so many others on different platforms: The Stand Comedy, jazz, piping, via Inner Ear, for just one other. But we have not yet acquired the habit of paying online for what we crave in real life. In our new Neverland, big tech Captain Hook grows ever richer while lost boys and girls of theatre, music and performing arts struggle for survival as we gorge on good things ‘free’ to view. At the last count Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is now worth $188.2 billion and, says Forbes: “Despite the employee complaints, business is booming at Amazon and Bezos keeps getting richer by the day.”

We can and must put pressure on our governments to support our cultural core. Not just the great national institutions – our concert halls, theatres and arenas – but the lifeblood projects that would fill basement bars, community rooms, backlane studios and choir stalls. But we can also, and must, get into the habit of paying for enjoying the wonderful motley mix of human skills which brings music, dance and theatre to our screens. Just as we would if we were attending the event in real life.

“The clapping stopped suddenly,” writes JM Barrie, “but already Tink was saved. First her voice grew strong, then she popped out of bed, then she was flashing through the room more merry and impudent than ever. She never thought of thanking those who believed, but she would have liked to get at the ones who had hissed.”

Then off she flies with Peter Pan to rescue Wendy from Captain Hook.   

Footlights

In the wings, perhaps a resurgent community spirit – This crisis, says James Graham, is a chance to explode the barriers that makes ‘culture’ inaccessible to too many people. Theatre needs an age of Reformation, not Restoration, writes Graham. Instead of going large theatre, and perhaps all performing arts, should go local, repairing the damage of austerity, becoming the heart and soul of the places where we live. And that means getting back to work, reviving artists, resuscitating the whole labyrinthine ecosystem. Re-engaging audiences in every community. Now.

Featured image is a screenshot from the film Ghost Light directed by Hope Dickson Leach – in collaboration with NTS artistic director Jackie Wylie and dramaturg Philip Howard.

This is a slightly expanded version of the article first published on Sceptical Scot

Some essential viewing

Edinburgh International Festival: My Light Shines On, celebrating the Festival City.  

National Theatre of Scotland: Theatre Without Walls

Fringe comedy, The Stand streamed, music, discussion: Inner Ear Livestream

Essential reading

If you can get past the Financial Times paywall – James Graham, How Theatre Can Come Back Better

[And if you can’t let me know, I’ll get you a copy].