THE first theatrical adaptation of a best-seller by a top Scots writer will have its world premier at a Glasgow arts festival.
The debut performance of The Panopticon, based on Jenni Fagan’s 2012 hit novel about a teenage girl let down by the care system, will feature in Eastern Promise at Platform in the city’s east end.
Fagan herself has adapted the compelling, gritty novel for the stage, and the National Theatre of Scotland’s production will be directed by Debbie Hannan, the young Glasgow-based director whose production of Marius von Mayenburg’s satire The Ugly One drew acclaim over the summer.
Short story writer Chris McQueer and Ukrainian musician Lubomyr Melnyk, the world’s fastest recorded pianist, will also appear at the festival, which presents work by eight different artists for £20 or £10 concession.
Offering an eclectic, high-quality bill at accessible prices means people are more likely to take a punt on less familiar names, says co-programmer Matt Addicott.
“You’ll have people come for a particular performance and perhaps they don’t know so much about the other things on the bill,” Addicott says. “That’s what makes these festivals really rich and exciting, people seeing new things and us looking at how we can create a big crowd for work we want to celebrate.”
Particularly evocative is Eastern Promise’s musical line-up, with vocalist Debbie Armour offering haunted, intimate modern reworks of traditional songs with her new trio Burd Ellen, and a performance from David Allred, a captivating Californian singer and multi-instrumentalist.
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READ MORE: Chris McQueer and Lubomyr Melnyk head Eastern Promise line-up
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Duncan Marquiss will open the festival with his performance of a live soundtrack to images he shot in and around the Easterhouse arts centre.
The performance will coincide with the launch of an exhibition of new drawings and moving image works by Marquiss, a cross-practice artist who is also a member of exploratory pop outfit The Phantom Band.
“We’ve certainly hosted Duncan’s band a few times at Platform,” says Addicott. “And what he does goes to the heart of the building and what we do here. It’s not just a gig venue or an arts space or a theatre; it’s very much an arts centre with a cross-artform approach.”
People from the locality were among the first to buy tickets when lightning-fast pianist Melnyk was announced on the bill. The innovative composer returns to Platform following a sold-out performance last year.
“Some local elders in the knitting group came to see him play,” says Addicott. “They went on to talk about the performance a great deal in the days and weeks – and months afterwards.”
The centre’s year-round work connecting communities with artists is reflected in the festival’s launch of You Know, Things Like That, a book which spotlights conversations of a group of locally based women with sculptor and printmaker Helen de Main.
“Public engagement with high-quality professional artists is very central to what we do and why we are here,” says Addicott. “What we’re looking for as programmers is high-quality work which is pushing at form or trying to move a conversation forward or in a different way, but that is not at the expense of the work that involves people who come and visit us every day.”
The Panopticon, which has been translated into nine languages, will help amplify discussion on how vulnerable children and young people are often abandoned and debased by the adult world.
The production stars Anna Russell Martin as Anais Hendricks, a smart, witty teenager passed between residential care homes and now The Panopticon, a holding pen for troublesome youths.
“Jenni’s story is very much the story of a young person who has been let down by the system, by the adults in her life,” says Addicott. As much as we want people to come along and have a really fun, entertaining time, with everything that is going on in the world just now, it feels very important and right that this story is told.”
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