Following the success of the 20 short digital artworks, released across and National Theatre of Scotland (NTS) and BBC online platforms, NTS announces more dramatic digital treats for the month of July.
Since the first of the Scenes for Survivalwere released on 27 May 2020, the freely available series has garnered over 6 million views with subsequent films due to be released three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
The project, delivered by NTS in association with BBC Scotland, Screen Scotland, BBC Arts’ Culture in Quarantine project, and Scotland’s leading theatre venues and companies, with support from Hopscotch Films, is a creative response to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Involved are leading Scottish or Scotland based performers, writers, and directors, such as Peter Mullan, Greg McHugh, Maureen Beattie, Mark Bonnar, Janey Godley and Kate Dickie, who have created short pieces of digital theatre remotely from their personal spaces of isolation. The works highlight the very human need for storytelling as they deal with themes of hope, solidarity, community, escape, fear, imagination and, of course, humour.
The season of works acts as a platform to raise money for a new hardship fund for artists and those in the theatre industry who have been hardest hit financially by the current crisis with some artists involved having offered to donate their artistic fee to enable further artists to be involved and paid over the coming months.
The next Scenes for Survival releases the week of 06 July when they go live at 9pm are:
Disco With Mum (Monday 06 July) – Written by Hannah Lavery, directed by Julie Ellen, performed by Saskia Ashdown and Julie Graham. Produced in association with Macrobert Arts Centre.
Courier Culture (Wednesday 08 July) – Written by Kevin Gilday, directed by Graham Eatough, and performed by Jatinder Singh.
The One with the Lockdown (Friday 10 July) – Written by Meghan Tyler, Directed by Leonie Rae Gasson, and performed by Oliver Bennet and Martin Donaghy.
All content will remain online for two years and a selection will be shown at a later date on BBC Scotland, BBC4 and BBC Alba in the coming months.
Irene Brown
Radio Summerhall Arts 