Theatre in Scotland by McMillan Joyce; Howard Philip;

Author:McMillan, Joyce; Howard, Philip;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nick Hern Books

Tales of the Tartan Army

Pavilion, Glasgow

The Scotsman, 23 April 1998

Beam me up, get me outta here, help, help, help! Book me a three-month safari to that one place on earth where they’ve never heard of the Beautiful Game, or the ecstasy of patriotic madness which it provokes, come World Cup time. It’s not that Ian Black’s Tales of the Tartan Army takes an unduly hopeful view of Scottish football as such; on that subject, at least, his anecdotal history of sixteen glorious years in the life of a group of dedicated Scotland supporters is suitably wry, and often very funny.

No, what makes the blood run hot and cold is Black’s wildly idealised vision of Scottish society, as represented in microcosm by his nine-strong detachment of fans. For a start, Black’s little division of troops is rigorously inclusive in itself. It contains supporters of Rangers, Celtic, and Aberdeen; there’s even a middle-class Jam Tarts supporter from Edinburgh and a couple of women. It fights racism on the terraces, and poverty in the slums of Mexico; it extends the hand of international friendship to everyone except the English (dismissed as ‘difficult to like’); it is beloved everywhere it goes. At one point, Paul Samson’s narrator admits that the Tartan Army is not perfect, but the ‘imperfection’ he describes involves the nutting of a neo-Nazi for bullying an old Jew on the streets of Milan.

What can be said is that the show is brilliantly served by its cast and director Martin McCardie, who evoke Black’s vision of this small, ideal Scottish community with perfect comic timing and real commitment. But I spent my childhood living in a nation that thought, in a complacent way, that by its very nature it embodied the best virtues of mankind: freedom, democracy, a sense of fair play. It was called Britain, and its smugness annoyed me.

And now, it seems I’m doomed to live out my maturity in a country just as smug, convinced of its own unique grasp of values like decency, justice, and the brotherhood of man. It’s called Scotland, and dammit, it’s beginning to annoy me too.

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