This is the seventeenth edition of the monthly newsletter from Short Attention Span Theatre. It features news about our shows, opportunities for writers and creatives that we've seen, plus plugs for other shows and anything else of interest. If you have anything appropriate you'd like us to include for future drop us a line at info@shortattentionspantheatre.co.uk. 

Thanks to everyone who came along to see our shows at the CCA in Glasgow in March as part of the Glasgow International Comedy Festival. Both nights were sold out, and we're pleased to say we'll be back at the CCA in March 2020 with two nights in the Theatre upstairs. Thanks to our actors Mairi Davidson, Johanna Harper, Kat Harrison, John Love and Grant McDonald, and to our writers Karen Barclay, Tom Brogan, Catriona Duggan and Chris McQueer, to our directors Karen Barclay, Tom Brogan, Max Chase and Catriona Duggan, and to the staff of the CCA for having us in for two nights.

There's information about our April show further down the page.

We started March at Miss Julie, translated by Zinnie Harris, in a new touring production from Perth Theatre at Horsecross Arts. It was an engrossing slow-burner with a lot of class politics, and a love that seesawed between sincere and vengeful, before ending abruptly in what could be either a cruel trick or the only way out. 

We braved the snow of early March to get out to East Kilbride to see the latest in Rapture Theatre's lunchtime shows; Terence Rattigan's The Browning Version. Included in the ticket price was a lunch and a drink. It was a nice format and made for a relaxing afternoon. The show itself was very entertaining with a solid cast.

Approaching Empty by Ishy Din, from the brilliant Tamasha, was a social realist melodrama that might have been righteously predictable as it pitted loyalty against money, but there was a truth and humour to the characters that kept us gripped throughout. 

The Papatango prize winner The Funeral Director was at The Traverse. Accidentally topical in light of the row over the No Outsiders schools programme it saw a Muslim funeral parlour sued by the partner of a gay man they refused to bury. It was all delicately and liberally handled, although it could have afforded to allow everyone's motives to be far more irrational and murky than they were, it was nonetheless an absorbing drama about self-discovery and community. 

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake is back on tour. Sold back in the 1990s as if it was some kind of gay sleaze-fest it's actually a beautiful tragedy about a Prince who is destroyed by his repressed desires. Bourne is a master of conversational choreography and it's as funny, dramatic, gorgeous and unmissable as ever. 

Dressed, toured by This Egg, at The Tron, is a high-energy multi-discipline look at a sexual assault. It has singing, dancing, spoken word, comedy, a couple of dramatic moments, half a dig at men (although it was mostly a well-behaved story of recovery rather than a hackles-rising denunciation - which is a shame - we live in timid times) and a midnight howling that was endearingly half wiccan earth mother and half 101 Dalmatians. It was very young and very moving. 

There's no more exciting performer of poetry over the years than John Cooper Clarke, and we went along to Glasgow's City Halls to see him. His support came from Mike Garry and Toria Garbutt. Both were accomplished exciting performers who really helped to make the evening. Toria in particular went over well with the audience. JCC himself was still sharp and witty rattling off one liners between poems old and new. The whole night showed how engaging and exciting poetry can be.

Glasgow's book festival Aye Write took place throughout March. We went along to see David Keenan and Michael Hughes discuss their respective new novels set in Northern Ireland. They discussed their work, Northern Ireland, and how they go about writing and researching. On the process of writing Hughes commented, "Each book you write becomes the smouldering wreckage of the book you set out to write." With regards to writer's block he said, "If you're stuck jump on to the bit you're excited to write." If you get the chance to see David Keenan speak do take it up. He's a very engaging speaker with a clear love of language and a habit of going off on seemingly random but always interesting tangents. He spoke about how, despite his father being unable to read or write, he had a great love of language that Keenan inherited. Keenan also spoke about how you don't need permission to tell stories. His novel For The Good Times has moments of shocking violence and he spoke about how he wanted to seduce the reader into caring about these characters who would go on to do horrible things.

We were at the Rum Shack to see Emma Findlay's debut play Much Taboo About Nothing, which concerned a young couple dealing with an unexpected pregnancy. The performances by Emma and Mark McMinn were terrific and the direction from SAST's own Mairi Davidson was excellent. Hopefully the show will have another run later in the year.

Back at Aye Write novelists Daisy Johnson and Alan Trotter spoke about their respective books Everything Under and Muscle. Trotter, who seemed endearingly embarrassed to be sat talking about his own work, spoke about how his book was ten years in the writing. They both spoke about the sometimes uncomfortable world of promoting their work through social media and public performance.

We went along to BAFTA's Guru Live event to see Reece Shearsmith in conversation with Muriel Gray. He went into some detail about how Inside Number 9 achieved their intended aims on the Dead Line live episode for Halloween. He also talked about a rejected reboot of Hammer House of Horror he and Steve Pemberton had been developing.

Local Hero at the Lyceum is a new musical (and it really is a musical, with dancing and set-pieces, not just a play with a gig attached or a gig with a bit of story attached) based on the beloved (it's actually illegal not to refer to it as the beloved) Bill Forsyth film of the same name. The most important point is that - no rabbits are harmed in this production - and beyond that is a beautiful, poignant, atmospheric story of sea, sky, and place and the destruction that big business and an unromantic nature could wreck. An unexpected triumph. 

 

The Moving Body
by Jacques Lecoq
 

Essential reading, and not just so you can 'innocently' make jokes about his surname, and not just for actors, this is great for any writer, especially one who spends too much time thinking of ideas, and not enough time thinking about actions. It starts with a bit of biography, then goes on to explain his teaching methods, ethos and materials. Unsurprisingly it's all rooted in the body and the conflicts that arise out of our feelings and the environment. Through masks, improvisation, intense observation, connecting deeply with real life, and a sequence of physical attitudes, we learn how to conquer vast dramatic territories and to create our own new work. 

We're back at the Gilded Balloon Basement at the Rose Theatre in Edinburgh's Rose Street on Wednesday 10th April. We have six plays based on the songs of David Bowie. These were originally performed script-in-hand at the Old Hairdressers in January. Tickets are only £5 and are available from the Gilded Balloon website and Box Office on 0131 622 6552.

Here you'll find what some of the writers of our previous shows have been doing and what they have coming up in the next month or so.

Chris McQueer - His short story collection HWFG is available from all good bookshops and publishers 404 Ink. 

Tom Brogan - Tom has an article on Jimmy Johnstone's Scotland career in the latest edition of Nutmeg, which can be purchased from Six Yard Box in Edinburgh, Social Recluse in Glasgow or online.

MJ Brocklebank - MJ has an extract from his play 'Becoming Doctor Barry', which was also performed with us in short form, in the new anthology 'We Were Always Here' now available from 404 Ink.