Six sisters, their ma and grandma get together to use a bit of womanly witchcraft, with murder in mind…playwright Des Dillon talks about about the deadly female of the species and the real life role models for his Scottish Witches of Eastwick.
It’s set in Irish Catholic Coatbridge, where Des himself was born and brought up and is inspired both by his own family life and by the tradition of story-telling with which he grew up.
“It was a very Irish upbringing, with Irish words and pronunciations. I knew other people came from outside Coatbridge when I heard them say things differently from the way I did.
“The stories we told just got bigger and better and wilder and the women were at the centre of everything. Women run Coatbridge society.
“I have six sisters and when I was thinking about what they got up to, I didn’t even change much of it. The ‘spells’ were real you should have heard my sisters going on about what they would do to people who crossed them. If I was a painter or sculptor, I would have painted or sculpted them but, instead, I’ve written about them.
“They’re a unit but all so different, great to delineate. Their sentences are so loaded, full of subtext. I would never have written a play like that if I hadn’t heard that dialogue at first hand.”
Under the auspices of Goldfish Theatre, director John Binnie has come on board and the cast of eight redoubtable women includes Carmen Pierracini, with whom Des worked on River City and the veteran actress Kay Gallie.River City”I wrote for Carmen on River City and she just delivered the lines so perfectly that I really wanted her on board. As for Kay, I’m a big fan of hers. I saw her as Mrs Culfeathers in The Steamie and I’ve always wanted to have a conversation with her about the real meaning of the story of Galloway’s mince!
“Apart from that, she’s a great actress and in this, playing the granny, she’s a pivotal figure.”
Aside from putting the tour together, Des also has a novel out An Experiment in Compassion, with alcoholism and building sites at the heart of it.
“I’m going back to the past with the subject for this one, but sometimes it takes a long time for you to get round to writing properly about things that have happened. You need the distance to do it properly.
“Structurally, it jumps about a lot in time the last chapter is the first one, because the story goes full circle but it’s really about what people do and how we react to them, and the question of whether we can show compassion to people who do terrible things.”
He’s currently on the fourth and hopefully final draft of an epic novel about the siege of Leningrad in the second world war. As well as having his work performed in Kiev in the Ukraine, he has also visited St Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) for a documentary on Russian-Scottish links. And again, his novel has been inspired by the direct experiences of his own home town.LeningradIn 1942, the Siege of Leningrad went on for 900 days with at least a million people reckoned to be captured, killed or missing during the fierce fighting and in the horrific effects of the siege. The women of Airdrie and Coatbridge were so affected by the news of these events that they sent a book containing more than 5000 messages of support to their counterparts in Russia and received in return the Leningrad Album, full of messages, poems and original artwork, now kept in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow.
Des explained, “I learned a lot more about it when I was in Russia and I was a given a Leningrad siege survivor’s medal which was really moving. There are such strong connections between the two communities and it was something I found really interesting and inspiring, that directness in the face of huge world events.
“It’s the biggest novel I’ve ever attempted.”
At the same time, when he gets five minutes to spare, he doesn’t tend to waste his highly creative time.
“My main source of bliss is sitting in the garden writing poetry the further removed from that I get, the more commercially successful I am, but I love to get back to it and the philosophy of it all. I’m fascinated with the idea of breaking through reality to the other side.”
Six Black Candles is at the Adam Smith Theatre on April 22-23, at Dundee Rep on April 28-29, at Perth Theatre on May 14 and the Macrobert, Stirling on May 22.
Des Dillon’s hit play, Six Black Candles, was first performed at the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh in 2004. It hasn’t been seen in Scotland again until now, but it has made its mark as far afield as the Ukraine, where it proved so popular that it’s been performed twice a month for years.
Des explained, “The project was to do this play and a Caryl Churchill one and when I was invited over there to see it, it was really interesting to see that everyone laughed at the same bits. The original novel has been number one in Moscow Russia is one big Glasgow, with the same dark sense of humour.
“Maybe it’s the Ukrainian/Scottish fellow feeling about being oppressed by a bigger force that binds us together in making black jokes about life, biting back at authority. Whatever it is, they really get the Scottish view.
“The play has been incredibly popular, so much so that the company over there was talking about bringing it to Edinburgh.
“That’s when I thought, ‘I want to do that, I don’t want the Russians to bring my play back to Scotland.’
“So I decided that now was the time to do something about it and that’s how this current tour with Goldfish Theatre has come about, going to a lot of well-known Scottish venues.
“What I’d really like to happen is that we take it on tour this time round, then transfer to bigger touring venues and eventually make it to the West End. I’ve real ambitions for that. ”
Doing that ‘something’ about getting this show on the road has meant a lot of hard work for both Des and his wife Joanne who is involved in much of the organisation. A former teacher who read English at Strathclyde University, Des went back into the job for five months to help fund the project. “I
hate teaching so you can tell how much I wanted to put this on that I went back to it!”
It’s a good line but in reality, discovering study and in particular, the study of English changed his life. In his youth on Coatbridge, a few skirmishes with the law, a bit of aimless work here and there, was followed by a stint in Germany, working on building sites.Auf Wiedersehen, Hen”If you remember Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, we were Auf Wiedersehen, Hen. Between the ages of about 13 and 20 I didn’t read books it was actually a mate who had learned to read in prison who put me onto reading again, starting, I remember, with James Herbert’s The Fog.
“But I did start writing a bit I loved the telly plays that were on at the time, Just Another Saturday and Just a Boy’s Game, wonderful stuff.
“It was listening to Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell that made me decide I wanted to be a singer-songwriter although I couldn’t sing and at that stage, my poetry was really bad all ‘woe is me, I’m lonely, lonely, lonely stuff’, the way you do when you’re in your late teens.
“Then a friend of mine who was a professional boxer told me that he was going to train as a PE teacher and that you only needed three Highers to do it. I thought that sounded like a great job so I enrolled at Coatbridge College to do the exams. A teacher obviously spotted something and told me I should do English and I ended up with the highest mark in English in the country for my year.”
Nowadays, novels, poetry, plays and TV scripts, first for Take the High Road and then River City, jostle side-by-side on his CV. With his quick-fire delivery and quick-witted banter, it’s no wonder he also does highly successful stand-up.
It still isn’t easy to make a living purely from writing, even with his kind of versatility. “I wasn’t published until I was 35,” he explained. “It’s still true that people take notice of how you talk and if you talk and walk, ‘cos I walk with an accent like me, people tend to treat you like an idiot until they know better.Class”I think in some way I write more like an American writer than a British one it’s maybe the Irish thing about leaving the country and turning left to the USA. If my family had done that, I think my writing might have fitted in better. In America, the way you speak isn’t connected to your class in the same way as it is here. I love Raymond Carver, for example, he’s my favourite writer and he writes such simple English, telling the story and that’s what I love.
“It’s all about capturing that simplicity and the right tone. People’s minds are powerful machines to create stories and images. Hugh Macdiarmid had a wonderful quote about ‘Scottish steel tempered wi’ Irish fire’ and that’s the balance I’m trying to get all the time. I think I’m the only Catholic in Scotland with a Protestant work ethic!”
Lately, a bit more recognition has certainly begun to come his way. Another of his plays, Singin’ I’m No A Billy, He’s A Tim has been touring Scotland to packed houses for the past couple of years, attracting audiences many of whom have never set foot in a theatre before. Recently, it sold out at the Armadillo in Glasgow, a 3000-seater auditorium.
“Fifteen years ago, I couldn’t get it put on,” he says.
With Six Black Candles about to hit the road again, more attention will be coming his way. These days, there aren’t many plays with a cast of eight, let alone a cast of eight women, but this one has just that, with a plot and characters, Des declares, drawn directly from life his own. It’s all about what happens when heroine Caroline’s husband, Bobby, deserts her for the wonderfully-named Stacie Gracie, and her sisters decided to exact a family revenge by way of ritual and spells.
Continued
Des Dillon’s hit play, Six Black Candles, was first performed at the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh in 2004. It hasn’t been seen in Scotland again until now, but it has made its mark as far afield as the Ukraine, where it proved so popular that it’s been performed twice a month for years.
Des explained, “The project was to do this play and a Caryl Churchill one and when I was invited over there to see it, it was really interesting to see that everyone laughed at the same bits. The original novel has been number one in Moscow Russia is one big Glasgow, with the same dark sense of humour.
“Maybe it’s the Ukrainian/Scottish fellow feeling about being oppressed by a bigger force that binds us together in making black jokes about life, biting back at authority. Whatever it is, they really get the Scottish view.
“The play has been incredibly popular, so much so that the company over there was talking about bringing it to Edinburgh.
“That’s when I thought, ‘I want to do that, I don’t want the Russians to bring my play back to Scotland.’
“So I decided that now was the time to do something about it and that’s how this current tour with Goldfish Theatre has come about, going to a lot of well-known Scottish venues.
“What I’d really like to happen is that we take it on tour this time round, then transfer to bigger touring venues and eventually make it to the West End. I’ve real ambitions for that. ”
Doing that ‘something’ about getting this show on the road has meant a lot of hard work for both Des and his wife Joanne who is involved in much of the organisation. A former teacher who read English at Strathclyde University, Des went back into the job for five months to help fund the project. “I
hate teaching so you can tell how much I wanted to put this on that I went back to it!”
It’s a good line but in reality, discovering study and in particular, the study of English changed his life. In his youth on Coatbridge, a few skirmishes with the law, a bit of aimless work here and there, was followed by a stint in Germany, working on building sites.Auf Wiedersehen, Hen”If you remember Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, we were Auf Wiedersehen, Hen. Between the ages of about 13 and 20 I didn’t read books it was actually a mate who had learned to read in prison who put me onto reading again, starting, I remember, with James Herbert’s The Fog.
“But I did start writing a bit I loved the telly plays that were on at the time, Just Another Saturday and Just a Boy’s Game, wonderful stuff.
“It was listening to Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell that made me decide I wanted to be a singer-songwriter although I couldn’t sing and at that stage, my poetry was really bad all ‘woe is me, I’m lonely, lonely, lonely stuff’, the way you do when you’re in your late teens.
“Then a friend of mine who was a professional boxer told me that he was going to train as a PE teacher and that you only needed three Highers to do it. I thought that sounded like a great job so I enrolled at Coatbridge College to do the exams. A teacher obviously spotted something and told me I should do English and I ended up with the highest mark in English in the country for my year.”
Nowadays, novels, poetry, plays and TV scripts, first for Take the High Road and then River City, jostle side-by-side on his CV. With his quick-fire delivery and quick-witted banter, it’s no wonder he also does highly successful stand-up.
It still isn’t easy to make a living purely from writing, even with his kind of versatility. “I wasn’t published until I was 35,” he explained. “It’s still true that people take notice of how you talk and if you talk and walk, ‘cos I walk with an accent like me, people tend to treat you like an idiot until they know better.Class”I think in some way I write more like an American writer than a British one it’s maybe the Irish thing about leaving the country and turning left to the USA. If my family had done that, I think my writing might have fitted in better. In America, the way you speak isn’t connected to your class in the same way as it is here. I love Raymond Carver, for example, he’s my favourite writer and he writes such simple English, telling the story and that’s what I love.
“It’s all about capturing that simplicity and the right tone. People’s minds are powerful machines to create stories and images. Hugh Macdiarmid had a wonderful quote about ‘Scottish steel tempered wi’ Irish fire’ and that’s the balance I’m trying to get all the time. I think I’m the only Catholic in Scotland with a Protestant work ethic!”
Lately, a bit more recognition has certainly begun to come his way. Another of his plays, Singin’ I’m No A Billy, He’s A Tim has been touring Scotland to packed houses for the past couple of years, attracting audiences many of whom have never set foot in a theatre before. Recently, it sold out at the Armadillo in Glasgow, a 3000-seater auditorium.
“Fifteen years ago, I couldn’t get it put on,” he says.
With Six Black Candles about to hit the road again, more attention will be coming his way. These days, there aren’t many plays with a cast of eight, let alone a cast of eight women, but this one has just that, with a plot and characters, Des declares, drawn directly from life his own. It’s all about what happens when heroine Caroline’s husband, Bobby, deserts her for the wonderfully-named Stacie Gracie, and her sisters decided to exact a family revenge by way of ritual and spells.
Continued