ANDY Paterson is due a holiday. For 22 days of the Fringe, the actor-writer starred in three plays: 3000 Trees, his long-running one-man show about the death of prominent lawyer and SNP activist Willie McRae in 1985, and Westminster Hour Parts 1 and 2, black satires on the amorality at the heart of UK politics.
Watching all three of Paterson’s productions over a day brought to mind a famous quote of McRae, a highly vocal critic of the UK nuclear lobby. Speaking for the SNP in a public inquiry into plans to dispose of nuclear waste in Galloway in the early 1980s, McRae suggested it instead be put “where Guy Fawkes put his gunpowder”.
The Westminster Hour stars Paterson as Archie Cornwall, a Tory home secretary celebrating having passed a popular new law banging up convicted paedophiles for life.
When journalist and former lover Fiona (Rachel Ogilvy, pictured above with Paterson) attempts to implicate Cornwall in a historic abuse case, the pair strike a deal that sees him installed as a PM and tasked with scuppering a second referendum on Scottish independence.
It’s a seedy, Machiavellian world that recalls the original House Of Cards, written by Tory insider Michael Dobbs.
“It’s interesting to see what people laugh at,” says Paterson. “Though I wouldn’t like to draw any parallels between Archie and the current people in Westminster, he’s the worst sort of establishment figure who sees himself entitled to do things other people aren’t allowed to do while being charming and funny in public.
“He’s the sort to get people laughing so they think: ‘He’s a good laugh, he must be all right.’”
Paterson is currently putting together more dates for all three productions and may even take The Westminster Hour south of the Border before touring Scotland.
Named for the forest planted in Israel, where McRae was emeritus professor at the University of Haifa, 3000 Trees has toured regularly since 2014, with Paterson taking the show to Yes hubs and community groups across the country.
He’s spoken with countless people along the way, including late SNP politician Margo MacDonald, Katherine McGonigal, a nurse who cared for the then 61-year-old in intensive care, witnesses who saw strange goings-on the road in Glenmoriston, Inverness-shire, where McRae was found slumped in his Volvo, and Donald Morrison, a former Strathclyde Police officer who claims the lawyer was under state surveillance.
Three relatives of McRae came to see 3000 Trees during its recent Fringe run, says Paterson, who graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in his mid-40s after years in journalism and publishing – endeavours he’s still involved with.
As the UK political establishment lurches from one crisis to another, The Westminster Hour is a reminder we should keep our wits in check.
“When I started writing the Westminster Hour, a friend said they wouldn’t be surprised if a second independence referendum was stopped by the death of the Queen,” Paterson says. “That may seem outlandish, and some of the things in it may seem preposterous, but we’re now at a very strange place where closing Holyrood may not seem as ridiculous as it once did.”
Dirty games will be played, he says, and they will be grubbier than in 2014. “I have no doubts at all that this will happen,” Paterson says. “They have already made a good start and appear to be doing very well at the moment.”
Further dates for The Westminster Hour Parts 1 and 2 and 3000 Trees: The Death Of Mr William McRae will be announced on www.facebook.com/andypatersonproducer
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