When British
professional wrestling legend Mick McManus passed away in May this
year aged 93, it was the end of an era this cauliflower-eared villain
helped to define. Two other arbiters of the original sports
entertainment who are no longer with us were Shirley Crabtree and
Martin Ruane, better known as larger than life kings of the ring, Big
Daddy and Giant Haystacks. When 25 stone Daddy, named by his promoter
brother Max Crabtree after Tennessee Williams' thundering patriarch
in his play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and 33 stone Salfordian
Haystacks clashed in the ring, the earth moved, even as the white
trash Greek tragedy they played out became a microcosm of a little
Britain that was itself being killed off.
This rise and fall is
poignantly captured in Big Daddy Vs Giant Haystacks, a new play by
comedy writing duo Brian Mitchell and Joseph Nixon, which is just the
latest example of a resurgence of interest in a form of spectacle
still mocked by many, even as it gave way to the far glitzier fare
propagated by WWF, now WWE. Yet before then ITV head of sport Greg
Dyke removed UK wrestling from our TV screens in 1988, it was
essential viewing for millions of fans. It was too low rent, claimed
Dyke, ignoring an audience that existed beyond the chattering
classes. In this respect, Dyke was making as much of a political
statement as Daddy and Haystacks themselves.
“There's really a
much bigger story to tell,” according to Mitchell. “Essentially
the play is the story of Britain, and those very significant years
between 1976 and 1988, when the shift in power between the north and
the south became more prevalent. In that way, Big Daddy and Giant
Haystacks came to symbolise aspects of the British character. There
was something going on there about the Wars of the Roses, and there
was something about the image of the working-class Tory, as Big
Daddy, with his Union Jack top hat, effectively became John Bull. So
it's a play about people who set themselves up to be their own
symbols.”
The revival of interest
in such old-school spit-and-sawdust entertainment began with the
publication of Simon Garfield's seminal oral history, The Wrestling,
published in 1996. Since then, Turner Prize winning artist Jeremy
Deller has made a film about Adrian Street, the Welsh miner's son
whose feather-boaed image disguised a brutal expertise in the ring; a
BBC 4 documentary looked back the era; and a website, Wrestling
Heritage, provides an exhaustive look back at some of the sport's
unsung greats.
While Garfield's book
was dramatised in 1998, WWE icon Mick Foley turned stand-up on last
year's Fringe, while writer/performer Rob Drummond trained himself up
for a show that culminated in him taking part in a fully-fledged bout
of drop-kicks and flying buttresses. This year sees the return of The
Wrestling, a show performed by comedy duo, Max and Ivan. As for the
wrestling itself, it's still there if you look hard enough in shows
promoted by Crabtree's arch-rival, Brian Dixon, on the summer holiday
camp circuit.
“It's not a huge
revival,” Mitchell observes, “but people have noticed that it
hasn't gone away, which is a good thing. I approve of a country that
allowed the wrestling to exist than the one that didn't.”
Big Daddy Vs Giant Haystacks, Assembly George Square, August 1-26, 12.15pm.
The List Edinburgh Festival Guide 2013, July 2013
ends
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