Arts Review

Ian Smith

The eternal optimists

Barbara Millar

Way back in the 1860s, key figures from Glasgow City Council's planning department went on an organised trip to Paris (isn't it amazing how the centuries roll on and the jollies still perpetuate?).
     I know not what was the intended outcome of this fact-finding mission, but it is generally believed they came back with architectural inspiration gleaned from the great Parisian markets – Les Halles – built between 1845-1854, and that this inspiration filtered down into the creation of the splendid fish market building on the banks of the Clyde.
     The fish market – often simply referred to as 'the Briggait' after the medieval street on which it is located – was built in 1873 as the trading room for Glasgow's wholesale fish trade. It was designed to allow horse-drawn carriages to enter and load/unload their wares, so featured a large, open-galleried central hall with a magnificent cast-iron surround and a glass roof.
     In 1889, and again in 1903, it was extended with two smaller halls added on, and the whole structure encompassed the 17th-century Merchants' Steeple, the lookout for the fabulously wealthy tobacco lords, anxiously awaiting their valuable cargoes from America.
     In the 1970s, however, the fish market moved out of town, and Glasgow City Council drew up plans to demolish the now unwanted building. It was saved by a charitable trust, which raised funds to repair and convert it into a shopping arcade with food and craft stalls. This venture, however, was short-lived and the old fish market became increasingly unloved and decrepit, its Victorian façade cracking and peeling, its glass roof broken, its ornate ironwork rusting, and its crowning glory – the winged sea-horse sculptures on the parapet – presiding over a sad and sorry state of utter neglect.
     But, remarkably, the fish market has been given a new lease of life and will open its great central hall to the public in August, after an open studios event on 24 and 25 July. The A-listed building has been saved by another charitable operation, WASPS (Workshop and Artists Studio Provision Scotland), which has a long and successful track record in providing affordable working spaces for a community of 750 visual artists throughout Scotland.
     WASPS has secured over £15million public and private sector funding to rescue and refurbish 17 buildings – from the Borders to the Shetland Isles – including major projects in Aberdeen, Kirkcudbright, Newburgh and Edinburgh.
     The fish market, its latest venture, has cost £6.5million and will house 45 studios for visual artists, 24 offices for cultural organisations, five shop-front units for creative industry companies, meeting spaces and a heritage interpretation room – and that superb 1873 courtyard will be used as a public space, with a café open to everyone.
    
Fittingly, one of the organisations recently moved into its new fish market premises is Mischief La-Bas, which runs its own market – of a very different kind. Mischief La-Bas, described by its director Ian Smith as 'independent, interactive walkabout theatre, which likes gently to warp the underlay of the fabric of society' runs the Market of Optimism, a quality much needed in these straitened economic times.
     The Market of Optimism is, as its name suggests, 'a full-sized street market of optimism', says Ian. 'We bring something uplifting and totally ridiculous – so ridiculous, in fact, that you can hardly believe we do it – to market towns in Scotland'.
     To shop in the Market of Optimism you must obtain the local currency – neuros – from a human cash dispenser ('which guarantees truly free withdrawals, as long as you are polite', says Ian) and, armed with 100 neuros, you can then choose to purchase from the 16 different stalls such items as a pair of rose-tinted spectacles, two minutes of good vibrations, a personal guardian angel, some spice – in flavours including grace, passion and glamour - to spice up your life, or a year's worth of renewed optimism. Each purchase costs 10 neuros so your money goes a long, long way.
     The Market of Optimism first saw light of day in 2008 when Liverpool was the European City of Culture and the market was staged, appropriately, in Hope Street, the long thoroughfare which links the two cathedrals of different denominations. A Scottish version was commissioned for Edinburgh's 'Feet First' New Year's Day celebrations in 2009, and the show has now been adapted for touring throughout Scotland.
     'We want to take this exciting event to places which don't have regular festivals,' Ian Smith explains. So far the market has opened for business in Aviemore, Perth and Dumfries. Later this year it will be in St Andrews, Cumnock and Kirkcaldy, although it will also appear at Edinburgh's Fringe Festival.
     Mischief La-Bas, which Ian interprets as 'mischief, over there: a misdirection, an illusion', has been running since 1992 and is very much a family affair. Ian's wife Angie is Senorita Stampada, a flamenco dancer (at the Market of Optimism she will stamp your troubles to dust for 10 neuros). Stan, aged 15, is a guardian angel and 13-year-old Lily is a wishing well elf.
     There are 30 other people – or 'manifestations', as Ian calls them – involved in the Market. 'I provide them with a brief, costume, props and motivation and they then run amok, improvising and bringing their own characters into the mix. To be involved requires nothing more than a brass neck and a fast tongue.'
     If these are the quirky and imaginative offerings of just one of the new occupants of Glasgow's old fish market, I must confess I can hardly wait for what others may have to reveal.

Barbara Millar is a journalist