Sandy Nelson never
meant to be a comedian, even if he did spend fourteen years on the
stand-up circuit. Nelson started out as an actor, working with David
MacLennan's politically minded musical theatre troupe, Wildcat. Only
when acting work dried up in what he wryly refers to as his
“dish-washing years,” did Nelson throw his hat in the comedy
ring.
Today, however, things
have come full circle, and Nelson has finally quit stand-up to embark
on a variety of theatre projects that has seen him back working with
MacLennan as a regular at Oran Mor's A Play, A Pie and A Pint season
of lunchtime plays. Nelson's latest work as both writer and actor is
an adaptation of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, which forms
part of this summer's Classic Cuts season of pared down favourites.
While Iain Robertson will play Petruchio, Nelson himself will play
Baptista in Rosie Kellagher's production of Nelson's second stab at a
Classic Cut.
“Last year I adapted
Pygmalion,” Nelson says as he explains the process of getting full
length plays down to just under an hour. “Most plays have several
storylines running through them, and the trick is to pick one and
stick to it. You look at the highs and lows of the arc of the story,
and you try to knit all the pieces together, so it looks like a
through story.
For The Taming of the
Shrew, which is ostensibly a romantic comedy in which Petruchio
attempts to court headstrong Katherina, Nelson found a few surprises
that take things beyond surface laughter.
“One thing I
discovered is exactly how dark it is,” he says. “At times it's
really quite brutal, and is quite scary in parts.”
Nelson first
collaborated with Kellagher on Lie Down Comic,an Oran Mor production
that featured Nelson as a natural fir for the stand-up comedian the
play revolved around. With the play originally set in London, the
pair adapted the comedian's routines for a Glasgow demotic, and the
pair have collaborated since.
Nelson began writing
plays about five years ago after becoming disillusioned with the
stand-up scene.
“I felt fraudulent,”
he says, “but my experience working with Wildcat really informed a
lot of what I do, and when I had my first play produced, I knew that
was where I wanted to be.”
Beyond The Taming of
the Shrew, Nelson is reviving Bite The Bullet, a play which also
began its life at Oran Mor, or the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Written
and performed with fellow actor/musician Keith Warwick, Bite The
Bullet tells the story about two middle-aged musicians who reform
their not entirely successful band two decades after scoring a hit in
Japan.
“Keith and I realised
we were both forty-something dads with a rock and roll history,”
Nelson says, “so we came up with this great story about two
musicians who almost made it, but didn't.”
Alan Chadwick on these
pages described Bite the Bullet, which tours the Highlands after its
Edinburgh run, as 'an entertaining cross between The Commitments and
Tutti Frutti.'
Inbetween writing and
performing, Nelson is also artistic director of The Purple Poncho
Players, a mixed ability sketch troupe who form the theatrical wing
of the Glasgow Disability Alliance. This is a pressure group, which,
instead of campaigning at events with corporate-looking power point
presentations, opted for something more creative.
“George Drennan,
who's the musical director of the company, first approached me,”
Nelson says, “They knew they wanted to bring some kind of element
of performance to the campaign, so now we workshop and devise
sketches which we present at hustings and conferences to make them a
bit more interesting.”
So successful have The
Purple Poncho Players proved that their next gig will be in August
playing to the Commonwealth Committee who will oversee activities
throughout Glasgow's Commonwealth games year.
With all this central
belt activity, it's perhaps a surprise to discover that Glasgow-born
Nelson lives in Moray, where he recently moved from Shetland. While
this necessitates a great deal of travel, this is something Nelson is
used to from his cross-country tours of the stand-up circuit. When he
is home, Nelson is part of a fertile artistic community which exists
in spite of Moray Council's recent one hundred per cent cut in arts
funding.
Nelson's most recent
outing was a one-off performance of a new play, The Gospel Inquiry,
at the Spectrum Theatre in Inverness. Inspired by both the Leveson
Inquiry and the Bible, Nelson put Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the
dock to explain the inconsistencies and inventions in each of their
conflicting accounts of Jesus.
“I was really
surprised nobody complained about it,” says Nelson. “Each of the
four explain what they made up in the Bible and why they did it, but
Jesus is defended throughout.”
In this way, The Gospel
Inquiry is categorically not an anti religion play.
“When I was younger I
used to argue with Christians,” Nelson recalls, “but now I can
see that a lot of the more militant and outspoken atheists are as
annoying and as blinkered as some of the Christians they attack.
Although atheism isn't a belief system, it has become a movement, and
a lot of them have the same hectoring tone as the sort of people who
tried to tell me to be a good Christian when I was younger.”
Living among what he
describes as “a small but perfectly formed artistic community”
with his silversmith wife, Nelson is nothing if not prolific. While
hoping to restage The Gospel Inquiry, he is currently at work on what
he calls “a proper bona fide post austerity musical, in which a
teacher, a nurse and a soldier join forces for a big crime caper. I'm
also writing a sex comedy about performance poets. So there's always
something. My big joke that I say to myself is that I'm just writing
a Wildcat show.”
The Taming of The
Shrew, Oran Mor, Glasgow, June 24th-29th; Bite The Bullet,
Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, August 16th-25th.
www.playpiepint.com
www.bitethebulletfringe.com
Sandy Nelson – Beyond
Laughter
Sandy Nelson's career
began as an actor, appearing with Wildcat in the early 1990s.
In 1997, Nelson began
doing stand-up, with his love of music leading him to satirise the
era's music scene and the pop stars behind them. He took two shows to
the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Bedroom Popstar and Stand Up – The
Musical.
On television, Nelson
appeared in Still game, Rab C Nesbitt, The Book Group, Velvet Soup
and Live Floor Show.
On film, Nelson also
appeared in Braveheart, as John Wallace, and as William Burke in
Burke and Hare – The Musical
Nelson's first stage
play, Metrosexual, was produced in 2007, followed by The Glimmering
Nymph in 2008.
This year, Nelson's
latest works, The Gospel Inquiry and Bite The Bullet appear.
The Herald, June 18th 2013
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