The Pitiless Storm

Assembly Rooms

All Back to Bowie's

The Stand In The Square

These two contributions in favour of the Yes vote in the indyref debate take us on very different journeys.

The Pitiless Storm by Chris Dolan is a one-man play show featuring David Hayman which is an unashamed polemic for a Yes but manages to avoid didacticism. When it's at risk of veering into polemic, it is undercut by shafts of humour and pathos as it tells the story of Bob Cunningham (Hayman).

He's a a well-respected TU official who prepares to speak to a party of his friends gathered to celebrate his receipt of an OBE. His journey reflects back on his life and his past relationships — with his father, his 17-year-old self and — most movingly — his ex-wife. 

As he does so he returns to his original principles and his speech veers from No to Yes.

In the hands of a less accomplished actor than Hayman the play could have misfired. That it doesn't is not down to the message but to the realism of the writing and Hayman's creation of a flawed, humorous and believable character. We've all met Bob Cunningham.

One point jars, though. His final break up with the love of his life is occasioned by a dispute over her participation on the big anti-Iraq war march — participation, he claims, that is tantamount to treachery to the Labour Party. Yet anyone on that huge Glasgow march would recall seeing many trade union and Labour Party banners. 

As a plea for a Yes vote, this play avoids the political traps but will it be a mobilising force for Yes? Not if the audience q&a was anything to go by.

Based on David Bowie's proxy request at the Brit awards for Scotland to "stay with us" All Back To Bowie's is a good-humoured acceptance of his invitation to spend some time in his apartment.

Informal to a major degree — it changes from day to day —  All Back To Bowie's usually involves a couple of performances and a discussion by other guests of a topic in Scotland from a Yes perspective, but wears it's politics lightly on it's sleeve. 

When I attended the artists were singer Josephine Sillars — yep, Jim Sillars' granddaughter — and performance poet Miko Berry. The  discussion on sport in an independent Scotland, while raising a number of good points,  did rather get "suffocated" by football — ironically one of the criticisms of how we "consume" sport in genreal — and it was intriguing how little an impact independence 

The Pitiless Storm runs until August 24 and then tours Scotland until September 15, details: fairpley.com. All Back To Bowie's runs until August 24, box office: tickets.edfringe.com.

Chris Bartter