Allan Sharpe

Allan Richard Sharpe (13 January 1949 – 5 June 2004) was a Scottish actor, theatre director and playwright who co-founded the Fifth Estate Theatre Company based at the Netherbow Theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland.[1][2]

Early life

Allan Sharpe was born in Falkirk and educated at Strathallan School in Perthshire, Scotland.[3] He decided not to complete a degree course at the University of St Andrews, to work in the family timber business and pursue a moderately successful career in motor racing.[3] Eventually, Sharpe completed his degree at the University of Edinburgh and trained to become an English teacher, teaching at several schools in Edinburgh.[3] Whilst teaching he developed an interest in theatre and eventually left teaching to concentrate on writing and directing.[4]

Actor, director and playwright

Theatre Co-op and Fifth Estate Theatre Company

In 1986 he formed the Theatre Co-op with Patrick Evans.[4] This enabled Sharpe to express his creative talent and work outwith the mainstream, where he thrived.[1] The company was run on a shoestring budget and had little significant funding.[4] Despite these constraints the company received considerable attention for its high standard of writing and production.[4]

In 1988 the company performed Sharpe's first play, The Burgher's Tale, which received an enthusistic response from ctitics and the audience alike.[5] Sharpe's Herald Scotland obituary described the play as follows: "The Burgher's Tale is a biting political and social satire inspired by his study of commedia del arte. He explores art's relationship with politics and the state and his conviction that art, in the fullness of its definition, represents the only potential salvation for an increasingly fractured and divisive world".[5] Sharpe would continue to develop this thesis with Playing Sarajevo and Heart's Delight, the last of the trilogy.[5]

Following the demise of the Theatre Co-op, Sharpe co-founded The Fifth Estate Theatre Company with Sandy Neilson.[6] The company was based at the Netherbow Theatre in Edinburgh from 1990 until 1996.[2] During this period the company performed 26 productions including several of Sharpe's own plays.[6] At various times he was either writer, actor and or director.[1] The company won several awards and received both critical and popular acclaim during its existence.[7] Sharpe also served a term as Chairman of the Scottish Society of Playwrights.[5]

In 1991 the company performed The Archive of Countess D adapted by Sharpe from the short story by Alexis Apukhtine.[8] In the same year they produced We, Charles XII by Bernard Da Costa, which Sharpe also translated and adapted.[9] In 1993 Sharpe had critical success with The Last of the Lairds, adapted from the novel by John Galt.[4][10] The play went on to have three further productions.[5] In 1994 they performed an updated version of The Burgher's Tale from the original 1988 script.[11] Once again the play received good reviews.[12] In 1995 the company produced Playing Sarajevo, receiving mixed reviews.[13][14] Heart's Delight has yet to be produced.[5]

Other credits

From the mid 1980s, Sharpe performed in several stage and radio roles.[15] In November 1988, he appeared in the Royal Lyceum Theatre Company's adaptation of William Shakespeare's, As you like it, in Edinburgh.[16] Sharpe also appeared in The Weavers, a co-production between the Tramway Theatre in Glasgow and the Dundee Repertory Theatre, performed in both cities.[17] In April 1998 he had a role in The Mill Lavvies, also performed by The Dundee Repertory Theatre.[18] In September 1998, Sharpe performed in a BBC Radio 4 play called The Hydro and in September 2000 a radio adaptation of Joseph Conrad's, Falk.[19][20]

Film and television

In 1990 Sharpe had a small role in the Scottish detective series, Taggart, the first of four episodes he would appear in over ten years.[21] In 1992 he had roles in two UK TV series; The Good Guys and Crime Story.[21] The following year Sharpe had a role in Strathblair and in 1994 The Tales of Para Handy.[21] In 1995 he appeared in Doctor Finlay and the film, The Near Room.[21] (The Near Room was James McAvoy's acting debut aged fifteen.) Sharpe's next role was in The Witch's Daughter and later in 1996 he appeared in Tartan Shorts:The Star, broadcast by BBC Scotland and written by John Milarky.[21] In 2001 he had a small role in the Monarch of the Glen.[21] His final acting role was in the 2002 film The Magdalene Sisters.[21] Sharpe died in 2004 from Motor Neuron Disease.[1]

Works

Writer

Year Title Notes
1988 The Burgher's Tale
1991 The Archive of Countess D Adapted from the short story by Alexis Apukhtine
1991 We, Charles XII Translated and adapted from 'Nous, Charles XII' by Bernard Da Costa
1993 The Last of the Lairds Adapted from the novel by John Galt
1995 Playing Sarajevo
Heart's Delight

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Allan Sharpe; Playwright, actor and director". The Herald (Glasgow). 26 June 2004. p. 16. Retrieved 3 November 2013. With the untimely death of Allan Sharpe from motor neuron disease, the Scottish theatre community has lost one of its more colourful and popular personalities. As a writer, actor and director, he preferred to operate on the fringes of the mainstream where he was more able to satisfy his independence of spirit and need for creative freedom. In doing so, he engaged in a body of work that illuminated the Scottish theatre scene and had a considerable impact on its development.
  2. 1 2 "Fifth Estate Theatre Company" (PDF). Manuscripts Division, Special Collections, National Library of Scotland. October 2013. Acc.11443. Retrieved 3 November 2013.
  3. 1 2 3 "Allan Sharpe; Playwright, actor and director". The Herald (Glasgow). 26 June 2004. p. 16. Retrieved 3 November 2013. Allan was born in Falkirk in 1949 and was educated at Strathallan School. He left there in 1966 and went on to St Andrews University, where his major achievement was to be voted best-looking student in his year. His course uncompleted, he dropped out and returned to Falkirk to work in the family timber business and to pursue an interest in motor racing, at which he enjoyed considerable success. He returned to university and completed his degree at Edinburgh, trained as an English teacher and took up posts at Fettes and, later, Loretto schools.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "Allan Sharpe; Playwright, actor and director". The Herald (Glasgow). 26 June 2004. p. 16. Retrieved 3 November 2013. His interest in theatre developed during this period and eventually he left teaching to concentrate on writing and directing. In 1986 he teamed up with Patrick Evans to create Theatre Co-op. Run on a shoestring without significant funding, the company was egalitarian and political without being agit prop. They attracted more attention for their high standard of writing and production than for their politics.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Allan Sharpe; Playwright, actor and director". The Herald (Glasgow). 26 June 2004. p. 16. Retrieved 3 November 2013. During this period, Allan's first play, The Burgher's Tale was produced to enthusiastic response from both critics and audiences. The Burgher's Tale is a biting political and social satire inspired by his study of commedia del arte. He explores art's relationship with politics and the state and his conviction that art, in the fullness of its definition, represents the only potential salvation for an increasingly fractured and divisive world. He was later to develop this thesis in Playing Sarajevo, arguably his finest work, and the as yet unproduced Heart's Delight, which he considered the final part of a thematic trilogy. He also scored a huge popular success with his brilliant adaptation of John Galt's The Last of the Lairds, which has gone on to three further productions, and became an active member of the Scottish Society of Playwrights, for which he served a productive term as chairman.
  6. 1 2 "Allan Sharpe; Playwright, actor and director". The Herald (Glasgow). 26 June 2004. p. 16. Retrieved 3 November 2013. There is no doubt that Allan will be best remembered for his involvement in the enterprise that could be said to have emerged from the embers of Theatre Co-op – the Edinburgh-based multi-award winning company, Fifth Estate. Once again it was largely unfunded and therefore free of any stifling administrative strings so there was a defiant buccaneering spirit that perfectly mirrored his advocacy and relish for provocative and intellectually challenging theatre. Fifth Estate embarked upon an exhilarating roller-coaster ride of 26 productions in its six-year life, which offered extraordinary opportunities for new writers, actors and directors.
  7. ↑ "Fifth Estate puts the team first". The Herald (Glasgow). 10 August 1992. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
  8. ↑ Joyce McMillan (7 November 1991). "Archives that are riper for plundering" (PDF). The Guardian. Acc11443/58. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
  9. ↑ "We, Charles XII" (PDF). Fifth Estate Theatre Company. 4 June 1991. Acc11443/56. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
  10. ↑ "Flavour of Moliere. The Last of the Lairds, Netherbow Theatre, Edinburgh". The Herald (Glasgow). 15 June 1993. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
  11. ↑ "The Burgher's Tale, Netherbow Theatre, Edinburgh. Exuberant madness". The Herald (Glasgow). 9 June 1994. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
  12. ↑ "Theatre:The Burgher's Tale Netherbo Theatre, Edinburgh". The Guardian. 9 June 1994. Retrieved 5 November 2013. Plays within plays, plots within plots, genres within genres – Fifth Estate's new production, of Allan Sharpe's boisterous satire, is a splendidly multi-dimensional affair, in which the story of Europe's last commedia dell'arte troupe trying to stage a performance in Edinburgh is used to comment pointedly on the plight of theatre in Britain. Since its 1988 premiere, the play has acquired even greater resonance, as Sharpe's updated references and a vitriolic rant in the programme about government/Arts Council "repression through financial control" make emphatically clear. The production's central strength, however, is its understanding that "anger is an energy", rather than necessarily an end in itself: the piece crackles with that energy. The tale is cleverly complex in structure: a performance by the company is raided by a corrupt but ostensibly puritanical city burgher, who denounces their work as dangerously subversive; a local nobleman and self-styled patron of the arts seeks the actors out and commissions them to devise a new play exposing the burgher for the hypocrite he is; in the meantime, a subplot develops involving a poor but educated girl taken on as a maid in the local brothel then quickly `promoted' upstairs. The bawdy, broad-brush comedy of the former generates an exhilarating momentum, regularly punctuated and sharpened by scathing, well aimed comments about the authorities' attitude to dissenting art. Occasionally the didacticism is a little heavy-handed, but that is forgivable given the discipline so largely evident, and the defiantly moving ending wrapped the whole thing up with a tremendously forceful punch.
  13. ↑ "Playing Sarajevo, Netherbow Theatre, Edinburgh". The Herald (Glasgow). 10 August 1995. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
  14. ↑ "Playing for real in theatre of war – Can drama educate and inform on a subject as difficult as Bosnia? Two plays deal very differently with the conflict". The Guardian. 28 August 1995. p. 8. Retrieved 5 November 2013. How do you deal with a subject like Bosnia, the Yugoslavian war in all its horrible complexity, in a way that is both genuinely dramatic and yet does justice to the real tragedy? To do it badly – however good the intentions – would be not only theatrically unfortunate, but an insult to those involved in the conflict. Two plays in this Edinburgh Festival so far are outstanding and contrast vividly in methodology – Carmen Funebre (Funeral Song), by Poland's Teatre Biuro Podrozy (supported by the Demarco Foundation), performed out of doors late at night in the playground of Drummond School; and Playing Sarajevo by Allan Sharpe, performed by Fifth Estate in the tiny Netherbow theatre. Carmen Funebre employs all the techniques of symbolism, going for spectacle with a minimum of dialogue and no discernible plot. Playing Sarajevo tackles the challenge of finding a naturalistic narrative which can carry the situation adequately. Playing Sarajevo is different, a complex narrative involving many actors. A drunken old actor (Allan Sharpe) appears on the stage of a theatre which has been commandeered for a military hospital, saying farewell to his trade with bitterness and regret. "When bread is scarce, the circuses become all the more important," he snorts. He is joined by his daughter, also an actor, and her boyfriend, and gradually by others, patients and an embittered military doctor (Alexander West). The excellence of the play is its encapsulation of the multifarious divisions in the community, showing the gulf between a military, terrorised existence, and the stuff of ordinary life. One woman has been comatose for weeks, and her husband has deserted the front line to tend her; another is trying to disguise her husband's ethnic origins, because "he's one of them". Another woman, old and gossipy, an unfortunately stereotypical character and a weak link in the play, wanders aimlessly about, muttering suspiciously about "thespians and mastectomy". She has a lump, and the doctor greets her brutally: "You're the mastectomy." Of course, there's no help forthcoming for her. The other great strength is Sharpe's dialogue, pointed and strongly ironic, and its explicit statement of faith in human nature and the power of imagination, art and love to mitigate the worst of wrongs. It is also a plea for understanding: "Our history's unforgettable – it shapes all of us," declares the military commander who appears towards the end, becoming an unlikely agent of forgiveness and humanity. Sharpe, trying to extend the scope of the play, makes numerous (too many) references to Scottish literature, but in particular to Alexander Reid's masterpiece, The World's Wonder, which becomes a metaphor for a vision of a future in which magic and joy are indispensable. Sharpe's play is a powerful, genuine and beautifully measured contribution to the Bosnian debate. So in the middle of the festival, when we're all overdosing on culture, too busy to listen to radio or read newspapers, does political theatre have a function? Allan Sharpe's character blurts out at one point: "We must help. I'm an actor who thinks his work can change things, and if I don't do that I'm nothing." He's right. As we know from eastern Europe, and from Bosnia itself, theatre has a crucial role to play – by stating what's happening and coming to terms with it; by providing ordinary people with the hope to survive. Bringing that to the rest of the world at a festival like Edinburgh gives a more intimate view than the newsreels ever can and moves us in a more profound, integrated way, giving a more total, real understanding. These two plays attempt, and to a large degree succeed, to do so. And when we return to the real world, after the festival is over, we will be enriched by that.
  15. ↑ "Allan Sharpe". Scottish Theatre Archive, Special Collections, University of Glasgow. 2013. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
  16. ↑ Allen Wright (31 October 1988), "Shakespeare sans taste: review of As you like it", The Scotsman, STA Fy 2/23a, retrieved 4 November 2013
  17. ↑ adapted by Bill Findlay. "The Weavers". Dundee Repertory Theatre. STA Oa 1/23. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
  18. ↑ "The mill lavvies". Dundee Repertory Theatre. 15 April 1988. STA Fs 10/8. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
  19. ↑ Ronald Frame (25 August 1998). "The Hydro". BBC Radio 4. STA Jx 87. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
  20. ↑ adapted by Robert Forrest (16 September 2000). "Falk". BBC Radio 4. STA Jx 51/6. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
  21. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Allan Sharpe". IMDB. 2013. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
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