A triumphant festival
The McLellan Arts Festival, begun in order to celebrate Robert McLellan, the writer and poet who lived and worked on Arran, has gone on to develop its own momentum as a feature of island life. This year’s festival was particularly successful, despite an economic state of things that makes such enterprises more challenging. It seemed charged with energy from the start, and a slightly dizzied look back at two weeks of almost constant events brings a mass of memories and images.
It opened with, almost literally, with a bang, when the brilliant Jackie Kay exploded onto the scene despite an almost nation-wide power cut that had the resourceful fixers from Arran Events backing up cables and mics with candles. Jackie is a performer who could hold her own in any venue as a stand-up entertainer, and was greeted with such enthusiasm that she remarked afterwards, ‘That’s the only time I’ve had an audience shouting for an encore!’ The following morning, she ran a well-structured, inspiring poetry workshop for a big group of writers and poets and left everyone newly excited and enthused. A ceilidh that night brought everyone together, listening in rapt silence to Tim Pomeroy’s skilled, moving songs and, after a great Corrie Hall supper, dancing to Scottish music and to the Jazz Café Band.
The McLellan plays that were staged in the run-up week, reviewed in our last issue, were beautifully staged and acted. One visitor from England was heard to say of the long poem,. Sweet Largie Bay, ‘I didn’t understand a word’ – but even she seemed moved. For those who found the run of the words more familiar, there was a rush of emotion as the life that has only so recently been left behind became real again, with all its heartbreaks, its beauty and its wry humour.
Something similar was evoked in Ed O’Donnelly’s two evenings of archive Arran film, beautifully put together and allowed to run in natural silence that allowed a packed audience each night to remember and dream. In absolute contrast, the talented students of the Royal Northern College of Music put on an Opera Gala that brimmed with glorious young voices and displayed the talent of those standing on the edge of future stardom. On the final night, students and local singers joined in a performance of the Haydn Creation.
Attendances at every event were excellent, even though financial constraints had forced the organisers to make a small charge for some that had previously been free. The McLellan Festival is clearly here to stay, and to grow from year to year.
