Andy Arnold is a director with staying power. Nae Expectations, which has just opened at Glasgow’s Tron theatre, is his swansong production after nearly 16 years with the company. Prior to that, he spent 18 years at the Arches, the multi-arts venue he founded in the catacombs beneath the city’s Central station, creating a seedbed for a generation of theatremakers, artists and DJs.
If in neither case did he overstay his welcome, it is because of the quality that defines him: his relentless championing of young artists. He has remained a vital part of Glasgow’s cultural life because of the company he keeps.
Take two of the Tron’s biggest hits of recent years. Before it won an Olivier award, Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) was a breezy summer hit at the 230-seat theatre. Arnold had programmed the irreverent Austen adaptation after effectively handing over the reins to the company led by playwright-actor Isobel McArthur and director Paul Brotherston. The company’s name? Blood of the Young – the clue was in the title.
“We wouldn’t have had a sniff of this if we hadn’t been commissioned to make it four years ago at the Tron,” said McArthur in her Olivier acceptance speech. “Andy Arnold, especially, thank you for taking a chance on us as new talent and having faith.”
Then there was the case of Moorcroft, now on tour in a revival by the National Theatre of Scotland. Arnold discovered playwright Eilidh Loan as part of a lockdown drive to find new actors (itself an indication of his inclusive approach). For her audition speech, Loan read a passage from a play she had written. He asked her what it was. Before you knew it, her true-life tale of an amateur football team had become another Tron hit.
“It speaks volumes for the kind of person Andy is that he would be so supportive of a young working-class woman,” says Loan.
Not only that, but Arnold paved the way for Loan to direct. “I knew she was so driven and had such a clear idea of what she wanted to do with it that she had to direct it,” says Arnold. “I offered to guide her in the rehearsal room but realised very quickly that not only did she not need me to be there but I was learning from her.”
It is an attitude he attributes to his own unconventional route into theatre. Born in Southend in 1949, he came to the business in his 30s, after plying his trade as a part-time teacher, writer and cartoonist, not to mention his sideline as punk poet RC Skidmark. Landing a job as coordinator at Edinburgh’s Theatre Workshop in 1980, he established a reputation for grassroots arts and, after a couple of years running London’s Bloomsbury theatre, returned to Scotland in 1990.
“I do enjoy working with raw talent,” he says. “I have a rawness to my process and I like to work with other artists who aren’t too interested in what the rules might be. I’ve always been drawn to that, the same way I was drawn to Eilidh Loan – it is so gratifying when you work with people like that and give them a chance to do something. There’s a freshness about it.”
But it is not all about first-timers. Look at the company signed up for Nae Expectations, a ribald Dickens adaptation, and it is like flicking through his career. He last worked with playwright Gary McNair, on a witty adaptation of Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist in 2019 and has long associations with Karen Dunbar (Miss Havisham), Gerry Mulgrew (Magwitch), Grant Smeaton (Mr Pumblechook), Gavin Jon Wright (Pip) and Simon Donaldson (Joe Gargery).
“There are exciting artists who are discarded because everybody’s looking to the next generation,” says Arnold. “There’s a balance. On the one hand, I like to give opportunities to raw young artists. On the other, you’ve got to make sure you’re producing the best possible theatre you can. Nae Expectations feels already like a highlight of my time here.”
Audiences have repaid him with their loyalty – Nae Expectations is on its way to selling out – and the company is eyeing up other opportunities, such as the city’s 1,449-seat Pavilion theatre where Arnold’s staging of David Ireland’s Cyprus Avenue transfers next year.
Arnold knows, though, he is leaving at an otherwise bleak time for arts funding. The Scottish government recently reimposed a £6.6m budget cut on funding body Creative Scotland it had previously reversed.
“There’s going to be a big hole,” says Arnold. “Already there’s a massive shortage of opportunities for actors in Scotland, particularly young actors graduating. I worry that will get worse as real-terms funding is cut back. Cutting the budget does nothing for the Scottish economy because it’s such a tiny amount but it’s catastrophic for the arts community.”
Naturally, however, his faith in the next generation is unbowed. “There are really interesting artists emerging who will find ways of making work and will be a great credit to the future of Scottish theatre. It’s about finding the means by which they can make their work and not get too disillusioned by the lack of resources.”
Nae Expectations is at the Tron, Glasgow, until 4 November. Moorcroft is on tour until 4 November. Cyprus Avenue is at the Pavilion, Glasgow, from 27 February to 2 March.
