WINNER of The Arches and Traverse Theatre’s Platform 18: New Directions Award 2014, Ishbel McFarlane’s passionate, interactive one-woman show about the Scots language comes to Tynron and Whithorn this month.
Brought to the region as part of Dumfries and Galloway Arts Live, O is for Hoolet uses stories, memories, interviews and attitudes to challenge expectations and prejudices around minority languages.
In this lively and detailed performance produced by Feral Theatre, Glasgow-based performer, writer and director Ishbel McFarlane portrays several historic Scottish figures and linguistic experts from Liz Lochead to Robert Burns.
Audience members, prompted by a televisual bingo caller, read prompt cards addressing those famous alter egos and Ishbel at various stages and ages in her life. The revelations and stories challenge how we view the Scots language, and the ways in which it is taught and subdued to question the way forward for minority languages.
Ishbel said: “Most of the world are essentially Scots speakers, people brought up using a language which is considered ‘lesser’ than the ‘real’ language of state.
“I want to encourage conversations about Scots language and minoritised cultures. Why is it we put language varieties into a hierarchy? Why do we think a ‘language’ is better than a ‘dialect’? Why do people who would never discriminate against someone for the colour of their skin, openly discriminate based on their word-choice?
“I love to talk, and, delightfully for me, talking is a vital part of the solution. The way we talk and the way we hear is the heart of the matter. This is a universal issue. I’ve had people come up to me after shows to tell me that everything I said applied directly to their experience of northern France, or urban Boston.
“We think we’re in a unique situation, but we’re really not. Most of the world are essentially Scots speakers, people brought up using a language which is considered ‘lesser’ than the ‘real’ language of state.”
Ishbel trained at the University of Edinburgh and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Her work centres around social justice, history, place and language.
She has collaborated with Amy Conway and Edd Crawley on an immersive piece about the experience of deaf-blindness and being a carer and with Vanessa Coffey making Newhaven Fishwives for the Stellar Quines show Untaught to Shine, at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.
As a performer she has worked at the Tron on Shakespeare readings and at Oran Mor in A Play, A Pie and A Pint. She was in the original cast for Ella Hickson’s Eight, winning a Fringe First, and touring to New York, and London’s West End.
O is for Hoolet comes to Tynron Village Hall on 10 June (tickets from the Midsteeple box office on 01387 253383) and the Swallow Theatre, Whithorn (tickets from the theatre on 01988 850368), on 11 June. Both performances begin at 7.30pm.
For further information, visit www.dgartslive.org.uk
