McLellan Arts Festival – What next?

The first McLellan Arts Festival happened in 2004. At that time it was to raise awareness of a Scottish writer who had been, and to an extent still is, neglected by and unknown to many Scots. Indeed, he is taught in more North American universities than in his native country and hardly at all in Scottish schools. It can be argued that without Robert McLellan we would not have a generation who think it is perfectly respectable to write in living Scots – Liz Lochhead and Irvine Welsh for example or a National Theatre of Scotland. He is simply one of the great makars who deserves to be recognised as such.

The desire to give such recognition and celebrate Scottish culture is what stirred Arran Theatre and Arts Trust to work towards celebrating McLellan’s legacy by working towards a festival in 2007 which would celebrate the centenary of his birth. In order to pave the way for this event, 3 small festivals were held which lasted a few days and focussed on McLellan’s short plays, stories and life. Then in 2007 the Centenary Festival saw a full length community production of McLellan’s most famous play, Jamie the Saxt in collaboration with Borderline Theatre Company who supplied a professional director and actor for the main role whilst Arran provided all the other actors and a chorus of 40 (and a performance space in Auchrannie Games Hall!). In addition the McLellan Poetry Competition was launched, judged by Kathleen Jamie, a play competition in living Scots established, a commission to John Maxwell Geddes, a major art exhibition, as well as various youth events including a documentary made by 3 Arran young people, Calum Johnston, Paul Tinto and Liam Turbett. As a permanent memorial, a stone was laid in Makar’s court, designed by Tim Pomeroy and a centenary edition of The Linmill Stories was published by Luath Press. Plans were also made to publish the collected works of McLellan – a sad omission from the Scottish corpus.

That was to be the culmination of 4 years work but there seemed to be a demand for the continuation of such a festival and here we are in 2015 having just finished the most diverse festival yet with work from Scotland and beyond as well as the most successful poetry competition to date.

So what next? Arran Theatre and Arts Trust would like to know what you would like to see at a festival which celebrates Scottish culture and make Arran an important part of the arts in Scotland. Any contributions welcome!