June 2004 Feature: Highland Festival

Mixing Drams with Drama

KENNY MATHIESON looks at the whisky and tartan theme running through this year’s Highland Festival with director ALASTAIR McDONALD.

THE HIGHLAND FESTIVAL will celebrate the twin themes of whisky and tartan at the heart of this year’s programme, although it also extends to include an international element, from Spain’s Jaleo Flamenco and the (admittedly British) Tex-Mex music of Paul Young’s Los Pacaminos though to the chanting and ritual invocations of the Tashi Llunpo monks from Tibet.

Los Pacaminos

Highland arts and culture remains firmly at the core, however, and nowhere more so than in the festival’s drama commission this year. Miniatures features the work of five different writers, each of whom was commissioned to produce a roughly 15 minute drama on the themes of whisky – a case of putting drams at the heart of the drama.

The writers concerned are George Gunn, Hamish McDonald, Ian Stephen, and the team of Dave Smith and Euan Martin. It is the first time that the festival has chosen to theme its programme as overtly as this, and Alasdair McDonald explained why he had made that choice this year.

“We have embraced themes fully for the first time this year, and we have chosen what I see as two iconic Highland themes, whisky and tartan. If they can do it in New York, then so can we, and whisky is a crucial product in Scotland. I felt the festival should take ownership of that in an artistic sense. We have rejigged our logo and design to celebrate these things. My view is if you’ve got it, flaunt it.”

“We have ambitions to punch above our weight as a city festival”

Many will regard whisky and tartan as rather stereotyped and backward looking themes for a 21st century festival. McDonald refutes that interpretation.

“I’m a great believer in whisky and tartan, and we will make sure we deliver a high quality programme in celebrating these themes. When you travel round the world those things are constantly recognised, and I see them as an aid to getting our message across. You don’t need to look any further than what has been happening in Tartan Day in New York, laying aside the horror of our First Minister in a pin-stripe kilt with no sporran!

“One of my remits in the festival is to draw the Diaspora home, and whisky and tartan are still very powerful images for the exile community. We live and work in the modern Highlands and it is full of creative and talented people, but whisky and tartan remain currency around the world, and there is a lot of work going on to modernise perceptions around both of them."

Miniatures will play throughout the festival at the Crown Court Hotel in Inverness, and will then embark on a short tour of Highlands and Islands venues. Otherwise, the festival is very firmly focused on Inverness, and that is the only viable way forward in the director’s eyes.

“Inverness is developing very fast, and we want the festival to be at the heart of that. The festival has the potential to become an event with a genuinely international reputation for the Highlands. It will still rely heavily on the best of broad Highland arts and culture, but Inverness will be the platform for it. We see this year’s festival as laying down a benchmark for the way the festival is going to be delivered leading up to the Highland Year of Culture in 2007.

“We have ambitions to punch above our weight as a city festival, and we want to create links with other festivals like Galway, and also in Scotland. We are a part of the new Highland Festival Forum which is being formed, and we would like to develop closer working links through that avenue as well.”

Other major events in this year’s festival two big outdoor events centred on Falcoln Square and the city centre, Tartan Day (5 June) and beatinverness (12 June), and a double bill featuring work from two large scale Gaelic projects, An Tarsainn and Na Tri Seudan, at Eden Court Theatre.

The Highland Festival runs from 4-12 June 2003 at various venues in Inverness. See Events Guide and the festival’s own website (below) for full programme details. Miniatures can be seen at the Crown Court Hotel during the festival (times vary), and then at the following venues: Oban, 15 June (venue tbc); Village Hall, Dalwhinnie, 16 June; Village Hall, Carbost, 17 June; Brora, 18 June (venue tbc); Knockando Distillery, 19 June.

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Mixing Drams with Drama

KENNY MATHIESON looks at the whisky and tartan theme running through this year’s Highland Festival with director ALASTAIR McDONALD.

“We have ambitions to punch above our weight as a city festival”

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