Nan Shepherd was an inspirational teacher and was once heralded as the Scottish Virginia Woolf. Thanks to a misogynistic review from Lewis Grassic Gibbon, she lost faith in her writing and abandoned that craft. An unconventional woman of depth and wonder, she saw no value in boundaries, smashing them throughout a career in education which flourished in Aberdeen, though her connection to the views and opinions of internationalism are clear and obvious.
And so, Firebrand Theatre Company has followed that flavour of the unconventional and has successfully squeezed Nan into a conventional theatrical format with great flair. Having originally created a radio drama then a read-through in the very same venue last year, this has returned as a fully formed play.
We are taken from her final days in 1981, back to being with her father in 1901, to her unconventional thrupling with John Macmurray in the 1920s, her teaching in the 1930s and the key moment that binds them—the 1976 interview with a young American reporter. This changed Nan. The reporter, having been commissioned to write an article on the much more prominent Neil Gunn, found a far more fascinating subject in Shepherd.
And so, in changing his focus from another article on a successful writer in Neil Gunn, he changed our attention to a writer who, had she been spared the prejudice of her time, could have been a significant literary figure who may have been the first woman to appear on a banknote in the UK, but could have been one of our truly inspirational and significant writers of the twentieth century.
This is a two-hander, and much is asked of both cast members, but both have been in these roles a long time. You can see the affection they have for the words and the storyline. Given the opportunity for the piece to settle and develop, there are moments of sheer collective brilliance which leave us with the story in a captivating fashion. The words are fantastic, the format is great and the direction sound.
The beauty of it is that rather than bemoan the prejudice of the time, hector us into agreeing how awful it is, we see the public effect on Shepherd, understated, devastating and very real. Then dripped into the mix comes the suggestion that Gibbon did not even read the novel he reviewed and that his own writing was imagined in an unfashionable English town, hunners o miles frae the reality o the environs o which Shepherd was a keen dominie.
Having seen, heard and reviewed the piece from in ma ain lugs to now, it is remarkable to see how each version has added more layers and dramatic sparkle to the piece. It is not a story designed to shock, though Shepherd’s relationship with John Macmurray would have at the time, as would Gibbon’s misogyny now, but it is a vital Scottish tale told well by Scots. It is often amazing how few of them get tellt.
The theatrical arts are done well and the dripping foliage off the school lights above us serves as a nod to the environmental campaigner that Shepherd was. The schoolroom scattered with desks filled with drawers that have foliage and the classic kept within it for 40 years until the reporter forces open the locked drawer as Shepherd fusses over whichever chicken got out, whichever man is being chased by her help and how she cannot cook, wears unconventional and old-fashioned clothes but has the inner delight of someone constantly being thrilled by the beauty around her.
By the end, you feel that the prejudice is laid bare, the books deserve to be bought openly and you become an unashamed supporter of recognising the obvious beauty of a spirit which has been crafted through the hills and mountains of Scotland, but captured here by Irene Allan as the spirited and beautiful Nan Shepherd by David Robertson's faither, lover, American reporter and whatever else serves as the needs of this tale. This truly is epic theatre in an intimate setting.