Category: Mary Woodward at the Festivals

**** (4 stars)

“Brilliant”

What a splendid way to start a full day at the Fringe!

But before I do, just a word about accessibility for the venue for ScotlandsFest.  If you approach St Columba’s from the Royal Mile, a notice directs you down a steepish flight of steps and then a few more.  There is an accessible entrance, but you have to carry on to the church to access it.  You can also go along Victoria Terrace to what looks like the end, and you can turn right and reach the venue that way – though you will still have to navigate the short flight of steps.

Now, back to the Wanton Women…

Mary Craig does a brilliant job of explaining the hows and whys of the explosion of witch trials in 17th century Scotland, without herself bursting into flames of rage at the treatment accorded to ‘wanton women’ of that time. 

Prior to the 17th century, all European cultures have a tradition of witches; in Scotland it goes back to pre-Christian times.  Witches were [mostly] women who were healers and charmers and claimed to have their power from the fairies.  St Columba brought Christianity to Scotland and didn’t seem to have much of a problem with witches, who might now claim to have their powers from God rather than the fairies, but went on much as before.

The 16th century brought the Reformation to Scotland and a particularly unpleasant form of Calvinistic Protestantism began to take over.  There were no fairies, just God and the devil: witches’ powers couldn’t possible come from God, so they must be from the devil.  People started writing crazy things about this, spreading the equivalent of conspiracy theories far and wide via the recently invented printing press – the equivalent of social media today.  The most influential book was one Malleus Maleficarum [literally ‘the hammer of the witches’], which Mary Craig describes as ‘a Boy’s Own Annual’ tirade against women, their demonic powers and, would you believe, their habit of keeping nests of penises up in trees…?!!

Prior to the 17th century, witches trials were ecclesiastical affairs, which generally involved healers, herbalists and charmers, and resulted mainly in ‘don’t do it again’.

The 17th century saw James VI of Scotland hot-footing it down to England, along with most of his Scottish nobles, leaving a power vacuum in Scotland, into which the Kirk stepped, with its Kirk Sessions acting as a ‘court of morality’ with lists of rules from women’s behaviour.  ‘Break one, and you’ll break them all’, was the prevailing moral view: and thus the accusation of “wanton woman” could be applied to a woman who is a bit mouthy, a bit independent, or simply a bit more brightly-dressed than most.

Mary Craig is always very fair, not excusing the Kirk’s behaviour but, by putting it into context, at least providing an explanation.  In the Calvinistic world of predestination, there was only God and the devil, who was very real and a constant threat.  The Kirk was full of God’s soldiers waging a constant war against Old Clootie.  Wanton women were the devil’s handmaids: they be sought out and destroyed before they proved the vessels through which the devil would enter and emperil the whole of Scottish god-fearing [ie Calivinistic] society.

The University of Edinburgh has a database listing the occupations of the occupations of women brought to trial for witchcraft in the 17th century.  Suddenly there are very few midwives, healers or charmers: the accused are often women with some social standing, some financial security, some intelligence.  It’s hard not to see the Kirk as simply terrified of women – not least because, despite the obvious superiority of men, it’s women who have the power to give birth…. At least 4,000 women [out of a total population of about one million] were arrested and tried during the century.

And Jamie Sext didn’t help with his hit publication Daemonologie, which Mary Craig describes as a better-written rehash of Malleus Maleficarum.  And so the wild theories and untruths circulate, proliferate, and feed the witch-hunt: and thousands of innocent women are strangled and then burnt at the stake, while any real witches keep their heads down and their mouths shut.  James adds further fuel to the fire by accusing ‘the witches of North Berwick’ – up to a hundred of them – of raising the bad weather which prevented him reaching Denmark and bringing his new bride, Anne of Denmark, back to Scotland.  It couldn’t possibly have been a freak storm, could it, it MUST have been witches.

Lady Manderson was accused and brought for trial by her own husband.  Agnes Finnie, a shopkeeper from nearby Potterrow, was the local midwife, bank and doctor in a very poor and deprived area of Edinburgh.  Selkirk Meg was accused of turning herself into a mouse and biting the arm of a neighbour’s child in the night.  Mary Craig brought these and many other women to life for us, telling their stories and making them real human beings, accused, tortured and killed simply for being different.

Some of them might simply be too old, past the age of childbearing, childless, or for some other reason unable to contribute to society any longer: being a grumpy old lady could be enough to warrant an accusation, a trial, an execution.  Did no-one complain at this outrageous behaviour?  Probably they were all too scared that speaking out might produce an accusation of ‘wantonness’ against themselves…

And I’m led to wonder if we today are any better than those terrified members of the Kirk who saw anyone who didn’t want or wasn’t able to fit the mould of ‘how you should be’?  Are women not still being accused – maybe not of witchcraft or wanton behaviour, but of not conforming to the [older, white] male version of how women should be?

After the show I asked Mary how she manages to stay calm and not explode with rage when dealing with such horror stories: she said she writes fantasy fiction in which the baddies get what they deserve.  I guess we could all fantasise about a world in which there is justice and equality for all…  Meanwhile, I’ll be very glad I wasn’t a woman in 17th century Scotland!

ScotlandsFest: Wanton Women Running Amok, St Columba’s by the Castle v367 for more information go to: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/scotlandsfest-wanton-women-running-amok

***** (5 stars)

“An absolute cracker”

Yet again I’ve managed to pick an absolute cracker of a show with which to start my August In Edinburgh!

In the beginning, there was the Christmas panto dame…but a dame is for more than just Christmas…

In true panto fashion, our heroine’s entrance was heralded with loud cries of She’s behind you! A vision in blue gingham and sparkly red shoes made her way down the steeply raked steps of Trav 1 to take her rightful place, centre stage.  Her opening number, into which she managed to get digs at just about every other well-kent Fringe venue as well as the International Festival itself, was greeted with a storm of applause. 

Johnny McKnight has been a pantomime dame for a goodly number of years, and works the audience superbly.  Whether you have extensive acquaintance with pantomime and its peculiarities, or not the faintest idea what this outlandish creature on stage is talking about, in an instant you are drawn into Dorothy Blownagale’s magic spell, a helpless, hapless prisoner.  Whether you will or no, you WILL enjoy yourself!

She’s behind you was originally conceived as part of the Cameron Lectures, in association with the University of Glasgow and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.  Johnny McKnight has turned it into a wonderfully, wickedly witty exploration of the history and nature of the Pantomime Dame.  When Johnny first played panto, he was cast as the ‘silly billy’ – the naïve, gormless youth who is simply there to be laughed at, who will never, ever, get the girl – virtual type-casting, except that he was beginning to realise that he would much rather get the boy…

For all its seeming anarchy, panto has innumerable, immutable rules inherited from the commedia dell’arte, all the more challenging because never explained.  ‘Goodies’ and ‘Baddies’ can only ever enter and exit from ‘their’ side of the stage – and up to now, male and female characters alike were almost always played by men.  The heroine could be female, but was generally a pawn with little agency of her own: the whole atmosphere was unquestionably heterosexual, even though the ‘hero’ was played by a girl, with much slapping of fish-netted thighs.  Ageism, sexism, misogyny and cruel mockery were rife…

At least, that’s how it was when Johnny first trod the boards as ‘silly billy’.  In due course, he graduated to playing the Dame, and in his first season felt so uncomfortable, so ghastly, so old that he swore he’d never do it again.  Thankfully for all of us, he broke his oath.  I’m not going to outline his trajectory, or reveal his Basic Rules of Panto – they are for him to tell. 

What I will say is that the story of how Dorothy and Johnny grew and developed, of the challenges they faced, and the triumphant emergence of someone completely at ease with who they are both on and off stage, is an outstanding example to us all, and an encouragement to anyone who is trying to find out who they are, and how to be truly themselves.

There’s music, singing, dancing, glitter, sparkle, audience engagement and embarrassment, drama, tension, suspense, tears, fears and cheers in full measure, and we absolutely adored it.  A standing ovation was richly deserved.

This is a wonderful show which every homophobic, self-righteous Guardian of Public Morals should be forced to watch.  Hurry up and get your tickets before they all disappear!

She’s Behind You!, Traverse 1 at The Traverse Theatre, Venue 15 for more information go to: She’s Behind You | Edinburgh Festival Fringe