In 2014, back when they were both still students at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, Robbie Gordon and Jack Nurse were inspired to take on a new project by a story Gordon’s granddad told him.
Originally from Prestonpans, Robbie heard of four miners from the East Lothian former pit town who travelled to Spain to fight against General Franco in 1936.
Robbie recounted the story to Jack, but neither knew much of the Spanish Civil War’s history, and certainly not that ordinary Scots – 549 of them in total – had travelled to Spain to fight.
Tracing family members
“We started looking into it,” says Jack. “We spent around 18 months to two years in Prestonpans, on and off, speaking to local historians, family members of the four miners and other people in the community with an interest in the story.”
The pair went through the local phone book and contacted every Gilmour, Watters, Kempton and Dickson in East Lothian, finding relatives of the four miners.
“We went for cups of tea, for pints, for walks, and from there we crafted the first draft of the play,” says Jack. “It was really exciting, pulling all these stories together from the community.
“We shared them at a rehearsed reading in the Prestonpans Labour Club one night, and we only told around 20 people, but through word of mouth over 100 people turned up to watch.
“That night was the first time we realised the local significance of this story, and just how powerful a national and international story it was as well. We knew what a special thing we had on our hands.”
Main theatre debut
549: Scots of the Spanish Civil War was first presented in town halls and studio theatre spaces in 2018, returning for a larger UK tour in 2019.
This new tour is the first time it will have been seen in main theatre spaces, with the six-strong cast (among them Robbie, who’s also movement director, while Jack directs) working with a new stage set from designer Becky Minto and an updated score from VanIves.
The framing sequence in a present-day pub has also been rewritten, to illustrate the relevance of this story to the present day.
“When we last did the show, we thought it was never going to be more relevant,” says Jack, “but actually, I think it’s even more relevant this time round.
Eerily similar times
“You wouldn’t even say we’re living in a time of creeping right-wing populism, it’s quite explicit, and now we’re seeing a massive cost of living crisis too.
“On the flip side, we’re also seeing a return to a real sense of collective action, through things like Enough is Enough, a massive strike movement and working class solidarity.”
All of these, he says, relate back to the events of the 1920s and ‘30s.
“The parallels are massive,” says Jack. “This is a story about ordinary people doing an extraordinary thing, standing up for what they believed in by travelling to a foreign land when it wasn’t as easy as just jumping on a plane.
“The history of the 1930s is important, but it also explicitly nudges us to think about what’s going on right now in the world.”
- 549: Scots of the Spanish Civil War is at Perth Theatre on September 29 and 30, and Macrobert Arts Centre, Stirling, on October 1. More information and tickets at wonderfools.org/549 and horsecross.co.uk, digital research archive at 549.scot.
.
