There's still time for anyone who hasn't seen it to catch
A Big Adventure, the remarkable John Byrne exhibition now showing at Glasgow Art Gallery, Kelvingrove. The exhibition, which is scheduled to last until 8 September, showcases Byrne's career across several disciplines, 'not just as an artist, but also as a writer, playwright, screenwriter and set and costume designer'.
John Byrne (sometimes known as John Patrick Byrne, or just Patrick) has been a towering figure in the Scottish theatre and artistic landscape since his designs for the
Great Northern Welly Boot Show (1972) and
The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil (1973) burst upon the national conscience.
The Slab Boys, set in the colour-mixing room of a Paisley carpet factory (where Byrne worked after leaving school and prior to attending Glasgow School of Art) premiered at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh in 1978. Transferred to the Royal Court Theatre, London, later the same year, it earned Byrne a career-enhancing
Evening Standard award in the Most Promising Playwright of the Year category.
Normal Service (1979) was a hilarious account of life behind the scenes in the design and graphics department of a local television station. The playwright's decision to use real first names for several of his main characters encouraged the view that it was a (barely) fictional account of the period, between 1964 and 1966, Byrne spent working in the design and graphics department at STV. Happily, nobody sued.
Other plays from this period included the final parts in what became known as
The Slab Boys trilogy:
The Loveliest Night of the Year (later called
Cuttin' a Rug) and
Still Life, both of which premiered at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh.
Writer-in-residence at the Borderline Theatre Company when the 1970s ended, the penultimate decade of the last century was an unusually varied and highly productive period for Byrne, playwright and screenwriter, as well as general man of the theatre. He followed his time at Borderline with a similar role at the Duncan of Jordanstone School of Art in Dundee.
Between 1984 and 1985, he was associate director and designer at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre where he adapted
The London Cuckolds, first performed at the Dorset Garden Theatre in 1681. A production of
The Slab Boys presented at the Palace Theatre, New York, in 1983 starred Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Val Kilmer. Frank Rich, writing in
The New York Times, observed: 'Though the setting may well be a Dickensian sweatshop, it somehow manages to contain the jagged abstract hint of a rainbow'.
As a TV dramatist, two of Byrne's most successful works,
Tutti Frutti (1987) and
Your Cheatin' Heart (1990), owe much to the support of Greenock-born Bill Bryden during his period as head of drama at BBC Scotland. Bryden, who died earlier this year, made only one stipulation when he approached Byrne to write a TV series – it had to be called
Tutti Frutti. Byrne agreed, on condition he wrote every episode. Edits weren't allowed. Produced by Andy Park, directed by Tony Smith, the series, which made stars of Emma Thompson and Robbie Coltraine, went on to win six BAFTAs, including Best Drama Series.
Is John Patrick Byrne (to cover his various guises) a painter who writes, or a writer who paints? Much of his output is clearly auto-biographical, starting with the earliest self-portraits through to the present day, and continuing into the plays, most notably
The Slab Boys. A catalogue of his work, published to coincide with
A Big Adventure, states, as a writer: 'Part of his process is physically drawing the characters, allowing them to take form so they can speak for themselves'.
His work since the millenium includes a stage verson of
Tutti Frutti for the National Theatre of Scotland; adaptations of Chekov; and
Underwood Lane, a musical tribute to his teenage friend, the late Gerry Rafferty; coupled with regular exhibitions of his work as a painter, including
Six Portraits of Scots Politicians for the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh; plus, across town, in the dome of the King's Theatre, a mural which utilises Shakespeare's famous line 'All the world's a stage' and depicts storytelling as 'timeless, never ending'.
As an artist, it's evident that no surface is too large, too small, or too workaday to gain his attention and respect. Who can forget
Boy on Dogback, Glasgow's first gable-end mural, located in Crawford Street, Partick? Then there was his design for the 20 pence stamp issued by the Post Office to mark the millenium. Serious examples of his work can also be found in millions of homes worldwide, disguised as record sleeves created for The Beatles
Ballads album; and to showcase the work of his close friends Billy Connolly, Donovan and Gerry Rafferty.
The wee boy from Ferguslie Park, Paisley, who wanted to be an artist and a writer, has been honoured by the Royal Scottish Academy, the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland and the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts. Born on 6 January 1940, he left St Mirin's Academy in Paisley, aged 17, without taking his highers. Six years later, he was awarded the Newbery Medal, given each year to 'the highest performing student across the Schools of Architecture, Design and Fine Art' at Glasgow School of Art.
He has been awarded honorary doctorates from Paisley, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Strathclyde universities. An MBE for services to literature and the theatre, contained in the Queen's birthday honours list for 2001, was returned as a mark of protest against the war in Iraq. 'I had to stand up and be counted,' Byrne explained.
And finally, it's the mid-1960s and John Patrick Byrne is working at STV: Champion Jack Dupree, former Golden Gloves contestant turned prominent blues singer and boogie-woogie pianist from New Orleans, was on a concert tour of Europe and the UK. Sample lyric: 'Mama, move your false teeth, papa wanna scratch your gums'. His Scottish dates included an appearance on STV's experimental early evening news programme
Today is Tuesday, presented by John Toye. This was an interesting period at STV. Francis Essex had been appointed controller of programmes and there was an ambitious buzz about the place.
On the director's instructions, for the visit of Champion Jack, a corner of Studio A (once the main auditorium of the century old Theatre Royal) had been turned into a fair imitation of a Mississippi riverboat, circa the previous century. A dozen extras had been hired to make the place look busy. Champion Jack, seated at an upright piano (specially hired for the occasion) wore trademark striped trousers, matching waistcoat and a maroon-coloured bowler hat. A pretty young model in a green satin dress, perched on top of the piano, substituted for Miss Kitty, eponymous heroine of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of westerns. Several people gathered at the rear of the studio to enjoy the fun.
Into the studio marched a young man, with long hair, a straggly moustache and casually trimmed beard, who worked in graphics and was just passing through, charged with the important task of delivering captions for that evening's programme. It could have been Bill Bryden, a member of the programme team and a fan of westerns, who was the first to notice, with all that hair, the young man from graphics bore a striking resemblance to Wild Bill Hickok. The director, Bryan Izzard, a larger-than-life character who enjoyed a laugh, agreed.
Which is how John Patrick Byrne, dressed as James Butler Hickok, joined the gang of extras paying homage to Champion Jack Dupree that day in Glasgow long ago. The recording lasted less than five minutes, went without a hitch, and was, by general agreement, a huge success. Happy memories!
Russell Galbraith is a writer and former television executive
