The Scots theatre that produces more plays than anywhere else in world

Before we come to the artistic director’s answer, it’s worth reflecting on how A Play, A Pie and A Pintt came to be, and what it’s come to stand for. And it’s an incredible story of serendipity, foresight - and sheer balls.

Twenty-two years ago, businessman Colin Beattie bought a crumbling former church at the corner of Glasgow’s Byres Road and Great Western Road. Beattie is an unusual business creature in that he is almost as passionate about the arts as he is about running hotels and pubs.

A Play, A Pie and A Pint’s new artistic director Brian Logan (Image: free)However, this time around, Beattie never planned to simply open a big bar. Previous experience with Mayfest and the Renfrew Ferry left the entrepreneur with the resounding belief that the city was screaming out for a multi-purpose entertainment venue. And he was prepared to mortgage his home – and several of his businesses – to raise capital to make it happen.

Meantime, by incredible coincidence, former Wildcat Theatre colleagues and best pals David MacLennan and Dave Anderson had recently returned from Dublin, having delighted in the wonderment of lunchtime theatre staged at Bewley’s Café. And they reckoned Glasgow was perfect for such a theatre concept. Having regaled their chum writer Peter MacDougall with the news, MacDougall shared some of his own. “My pal Colin Beattie is planning a new pub in Byres Road and he’s looking for entertainment ideas. You should talk to him.”

Colin Beattie recalls the meeting with the two Daves. “They came to me with tremendous enthusiasm, and I was quickly convinced the idea could work.” He grins. “The only little point of disagreement came when they suggested the concept should be called ‘A Pint, A Pie and a Play.’ I said no. The Play part of the title has to come first.’”

Two years later, with Beattie’s trouser pockets some £8m lighter and the banks now owning the shirt off his back, Oran Mor and A Play, A Pie and A Pint opened. Yet, to say the theatre part of the concept was an immediate success would be like saying Lady Macbeth was an unassuming sort. It took the longest time to capture an audience. “We had 20 people in some days,” says Dave Anderson of the theatre space which holds 200.

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Part of the reason was that some of the plays simply didn’t work. (Not many of the Arab Spring offerings had the theatre goers bouncing along Byres Road. The play, for example, featuring three pigs being taken to the slaughterhouse had the audience hoping it would be merciful and quick.) The PPP concept had to find its audience. “Some were indeed shite,” says Anderson, “but we ran on the basis that the week before offering was good, and the following week would most likely be great, so it didn’t matter too much.”

The idea of staging a new play each week, almost 40 a year (with pantos), given the limited resources, was incredibly hard. With only two weeks rehearsal and just over three hours of technical running, it’s no surprise that actress Juliet Cadzow (and wife of David MacLennan) would say that opening days were described as ‘shit a brick Mondays.’

Gradually, however, the numbers increased. West end audiences, a mix of retired people, students, and ageless theatre lovers, soon determined to squeeze an hour of fun/culture/escape into the middle of their day. And David MacLennan, and his hired guns – the directors, producers and writers – gave them more of what they wanted, which was comedies by the likes of writer David Ireland and Johnny McKnight, touching drama by the likes of Ann Marie di Mambro and the clever re-imaginings of classics by Liz Lochhead.

David MacLennan also came to appreciate that those who had forked out for the pie (or the quiche) had great imagination and were prepared to enter a galaxy of worlds; one week they could indeed be in space, the next Casablanca, or Heaven or Hell. Writers were given free reign to locate their stories in the bowels of a Spanish galleon or the BBC, a cancer ward or indeed on top of the Forth Road Bridge.

MacLennan and Beattie smiled appreciatively in the knowledge that audiences were far from staid or moralistic, prepared to applaud plays featuring almost every sexual persuasion. (Although they did struggle with the play featuring the man who deeply loved pigeons.)

Founder David MacLennan (Image: free) David MacLennan, an agit prop veteran, delighted in the discovery that A Play, A Pie and A Pint loved the stage appearances of countless drag queens, and real Queens such as Mary, Queen of Scots. Writers have had great fun re-imagining icons onto the tiny west end stage, from Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy to Elvis (a female Elvis, with a Doric accent).

We’ve seen portrayals of Dolly Parton, Chic Murray, McGonagall, Sartre – and Frank Sinatra’s mother. And who can forget Patsy Cline or the wonderful Carmen who crashed into Cranhill? If memory serves, didn’t Osama Bin Laden once explode onto the Oran Mor stage?

And when David MacLennan passed away, subsequent artistic directors followed in his lead, commissioning plays about the lives of psychiatric legends and rent refusal activists. On the small stage we witnessed football matches played out, international cycling races being won and Moby Dick swim around. (In a fish tank.)

Wacky? Sometimes border line absurd? You bet. But how can you not laugh when a journalist is kidnapped and strapped to a radiator? How can you not be captivated by the history of Scotland when it’s told to you by toilet? How can you not be utterly enthralled by an actor delivering a monologue while running on a treadmill for the entire length of the play?

And how will anyone ever forget the sight of David MacLennan appearing on stage naked, but for a safety-pinned nappy?

Let’s not ignore either the power of A Play, A Pie and A Pint to attract performers such as Robbie Coltrane, Elaine C. Smith and Bill Paterson to dinner time theatre, for less than a dinner lady’s wages. And (seemingly) every actor who has ever appeared in River City, except perhaps Vader’s dog.

It was little wonder therefore that audiences grew, and indeed why the concept was exported to cities across the world, appearing in Sweden, Venezuela, Norway and Turkey. Closer to home, much-valued co-production deals have been set up with the likes of the Lyceum in Edinburgh, the Lemon Tree in Aberdeen and the Gaiety in Ayr.

Maureen Carr and Maureen Beattie (Image: free) What audiences perhaps won’t realise is that it produces more plays each year than any other theatre in Europe. Possibly the world. This stat reflects not only the frisson audiences feel as it approaches one o’clock but the passion of the performers, the writers, directors and producers.

So, it seems you can probably guess Brian Logan’s answer to the Ming vase analogy question, and whether he is indeed feart of dropping it. But here it is anyway. “If, as we enter its third decade the current PPP team are to honour David MacLennan’s – and Dave Anderson’s, and Colin Beattie’s, and everyone else’s legacy – we must treat this enterprise as something to play with, not protect. To take risks with, to celebrate, and surprise,” the artistic director proclaimed.

Logan then smiled, no doubt thinking of the fun he’s set to have in the months ahead. “So, we should juggle with the Ming vase. Go roller skating with it across a playground. Stick it in a dress and cast it in a panto.”

Next week’s A Play, A Pie and A Pint is Ghost Off!, a Glasgow tale of a Victorian ghost, and a million-pound prize, October 28-November 2