Alan Riach: Neglect this historically key Scottish play at your own peril

IN the first half of the play, King Humanity and the Three Estates of the Church (the clergy and churchmen), the nobility (the knights, aristocrats and courtiers) and the burgesses (the merchants of the “middle class” who ruled the towns) have been seriously corrupted and led so far astray that they’re in need of extreme reform. Divine Correction starts to sort things out.

READ MORE: Satirical genius: The towering work of Scottish writer David Lyndsay

But in the second half, something more radical happens. The Poor Man and John the Commonweal come forward from the audience and give voice to the concerns of the people whose lives are so often not represented at all. When the Poor Man agrees with John the Commonweal that something must be done, everyone is brought to attention: “It is weel kenned I had baith nolt and horse, [cattle, horses] / Now all my gear ye see upon my corse. [body]”.

This is Shakespeare’s Poor Tom in King Lear, or Lear himself, a naked wretch before the storm – but this is not a storm of nature, it’s a hurricane brought on by the despicable work of corrupt and incompetent human beings in power. Sounds familiar. John the Commonweal speaks up:

I pray you, sir, begin first at the border.
For how can we fend us [defend ourselves] against England,
When we cannot within our native land,
Destroy our own Scots common traitor thieves,
Wha to leal [honest] labourers daily does mischiefs.

If he were king, says John, he’d take every thief and every thieving conspirator and string them up, whether they were knight, lord or landowner. Temporality asks John: “What other enemies has thou?” And John’s reply is stunning, exhaustive, even-tempered and yet blazing with restrained force:

This been against the strang beggars, [those who could work but choose to beg instead]
Fiddlers, pipers, and pardoners, [in this instance, meaning entertainers whose purpose is exploitation and profiteering]
Thir jugglers, jesters, and idle cutchers, [mesmerisers, comedians peddling reactionary prejudices, idle gamblers]
Thir carriers and thir quintacensors, [sycophants, alchemists]
Thir bauble-bearers and thir bairds, [fools (‘bards’ as in tabloid journalists)]
Thir sweer swingeours [bold enforcers] with lords and lairds
Mair than their rents may sustain,
Or to their profit needful been,
Whilk been ay blithest of discords,
And deadly feud amang their lords.

John is attacking the hordes of superfluous sycophants hanging around the households of the wealthy and saturating the airwaves of the poor. If there were no feuds between competing oligarchs, the “bards” wouldn’t get the chance to praise their patrons or scorn their opponents.

It’s bad enough having tyrants so wealthy they remain unaccountable but when entertainment and information are mediated by people in the pay and at the command of such monstrosities, they too deserve hanging.

Translate this into contemporary terms and we might see some equivalent roles: Church and bards = mass media; nobility = lords, government and councillors; burgesses = capitalist moguls (big business bosses, landowners, toffs and aristos). The equivalence isn’t exact but you get the idea. Here’s John’s judgment on the “slouchers”: “Lyin’ in dens like idle dogs, / I them compare to weel fed hogs!”

John carries on for more than 20 lines listing the hypocrites, sycophants and wastrels whose sloth and idleness, greed and gluttony, are a constant drain upon the virtues of common working people.

As if that were not enough, Divine Correction invites him to carry on: “Whom upon mair will ye complain?” And he does: “Marry, on mair and mair again”. He denounces the thieves and wasters in high office, in Church and government, all of whom are in dire need of serious “correction”:

Ane peggrel [petty] thief that steals ane cow
Is hangit; but he that steals ane bow, [a whole herd]
With als mickle gear as he may turse, [as much property as he can take]
That thief is hangit by the purse. [that is, merely fined]
Sic picking peggrel thieves are hangit,
But he that all the world has wrangit, [wronged]
Ane cruel tyrant, ane strang transgressor,
Ane common public plain oppressor,
By buds [bribes] may he obtain favours
Of treasurers and compositors. [accountants]
Though he ’serve [deserves] great punitioun,
Gets easy composition: [an easy (financial) settlement]
And through laws consistorial, [court laws consistent with power]
Prolix, corrupt, and partial, [over-complicated]
The common people are put sae under,
Though they be poor, it is nae wonder.

Good Counsel opens the question of how prelates and priests ought to be remunerated for their work (today we might think of people who should be telling us truths and giving us wisdom, people in public office, politicians indeed):

Ane bishop’s office is for to be ane preacher,
And of the law of God ane public teacher.
Right sae the parson unto his parichon, [parishioners]
Of the Evangel [Gospel] should lear [teach] them ane lesson.
There should nae man desire sic dignities,
Without he be able for that office.
And for that cause I say, without leesing, [lying]
They have their teinds, [taxes] and for nae other thing.

THE play is exceptional in the whole European context. Its dramatic urgency combines universal allegorical figures in an unfolding story that combines high moral certainty, coarse, snappy comedy and sheer theatrical adventure.

And further: the voices of the poor and dispossessed are heard cutting through the authorised social arbiters of judgment. There is nothing quite like it.

Its greatness arises not only from the moral force I’ve described but from the balance of authority and humour, passion and ribaldry, an understanding of what temptations are and a sympathy with the mortal inclination towards them.

When I went to the Assembly Hall in Edinburgh in 1984 with my parents to see the Tom Fleming production, performed by almost all of Scotland’s greatest actors, it was a revelation to me of what large-scale theatre could do.

From Andrew Cruickshank (some will remember old Dr Cameron, Dr Finlay’s mentor) as the Abbot to Gregor Fisher (better known now as a certain Mr Nesbitt) as Falsehood, the performances were impeccable. When the Poor Man (Phil MacCall) threw the Pardoner (Walter Carr) off the stage for his lying duplicity, he landed on the floor right in front of my mother.

Gathering his robes, he rose to his feet still holding what was obviously a big cow’s jawbone which he’d been trying to sell to the poor people in the play as a relic of Christ. He glanced at my mother, pointed to the bone and said: “Hi, Missus, could ye no’ mak’ a great pot o’ soup oot o’ that?” The laughter was spontaneous, wonderful and everywhere. Carr skipped off before anyone could catch him.

That’s the play: the immediacy of riotous humour, verbal speed, serious morality, delivered through brilliant acting and direction, full scale production quality and, without banality or obviousness, the sheer power of contemporary application. Neglect it at your peril.