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McGrath and Theatre - 7:84Although much of his life was spent in TV and film, McGrath's first love was theatre. His involvement began at Oxford and continued with his short stay at the Royal Court, but then he turned to the screen. At the same time, however, he was writing for theatre and Random Happenings in the Hebrides, the first of his "Scottish" plays, was produced in 1970, although he had been engaged in writing it for some time. In 1971 he set up 7:84 and so began a company that was to become something of a legend. Scottish history and life was to be its mainstay and, although it shortly split into two companies, one in England and one in Scotland, it was the Scottish company that made the greatest impact. Its subjects were history (The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil), politics ( the Scottish National Party) and social problems (alcoholism). However McGrath would probably disagree with this analysis: he would, I suspect, have said that all his plays were political in the widest sense. Herein, I think, lies his gtreatest achievement: to prove conclusively that political theatre need not be worthy but dull agit-prop but in fact could be enormously entertaining whilst still being hard-hitting. 7:84 England folded in 1984, having lost its grant from the Arts Council (too political!), and McGrath left the Scottish company in 1988 because of fundmental disagreements with the Scottish Arts Council. The company still continues, but it has gone in a direction which McGrath would have disliked: it works within the mainstream of that culture which he dismissed as intellectual and middle-class. Gone are the working-class audiences which flocked to church and village halls and other non-theatre spaces to see Cheviot: instead we have, for example, Caledonia Dreaming (David Greig) at the 1999 Edinburgh Fringe. McGrath continued to write plays, produce films and polemicise, but the magic moment had passed - that fusion of Zeitgeist and the man for the time - but his place in the history of British theatre is assured, a significant and influential figure. Post-Thatcherite - and, regrettably, Blairite - society has demonised socialism, but perhaps the passing of one of the great socialist playwrights/directors signals a time for re-evaluation. The socialism of McGrath is not some hideously underhand sub-Soviet plot to destroy civilisation as we know it but it arises from a passionate concern for the plight of the bottom rungs of society and, like the Labour Party of old, is more Robert Owen than Karl Marx. John McGrath died, aged 66, on 22nd January, 2002. By one of those unhappy coincidences which occur from time to time, Stratford Johns, who played Chief Inspector Charlie Barlow in Z Cars, died a week later at the age of 77. Articles Indices:
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