IF THE secret of youth is constant self-reinvention, then Andy Arnold should be giving master-classes in it. Back in the 1970s, Arnold was a young punk rocker from Southend, with ambitions to work in theatre. In the early 1980s, he ran Edinburgh's Theatre Workshop for a while, turning it into a powerful combination of community theatre and radical touring company that's still remembered with affection. He then returned to London for a few years.
By 1990, though, he was back in Glasgow, in the network of old tunnels beneath Central Station, masterminding a strange historical-exhibition-with-performances that formed part of that year's City of Culture celebrations. And for the next 17 years Ar
nold led the Arches into Scottish and UK cultural history as a ground-breaking venue funding a cutting-edge programme of theatre and visual art – not least Arnold's own superb tribute seasons to great world playwrights of the 20th century, Irish, American and British – through its other life as one of the hottest spots on the city's clubbing and live music scene.
But then earlier this year – just after the Arches Theatre had finally secured five-year foundation funding from the Scottish Arts Council, and at an age when fainter spirits might have been beginning to think of relaxing into retirement – Arnold pulled off another surprise reinvention by taking on the artistic directorship of the troubled Tron Theatre, just along Argyll Street from the Arches, but shaped by a very different history.
So when he stepped up earlier this week, alongside playwright John Byrne, to receive an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from Strathclyde University, Arnold might have congratulated himself on pulling off the rare double of simultaneously receiving an accolade for a lifetime's achievement, and starting a brand-new job.
"To be honest," says Arnold, "I had never even thought about leaving the Arches until this past year. But I think it was something to do with that process of finally achieving secure funding, and remembering that the reason I set the company up in the first place was because I wanted to do theatre. The Arches is fantastic, but it's in the nature of the place that all the other stuff – the clubs, the music gigs – is always going to be there; and I suddenly felt that I really wanted to get back to focussing completely on theatre. Then the Tron came up, for the third time in three years; and it suddenly seemed like the most natural move in the world."
It's no secret, of course, that the Tron has had its difficulties since its inspired producer and impresario Neil Murray left to join the National Theatre of Scotland at the end of 2004, with two artistic directors coming and going in rapid succession. In Arnold, though, it seems likely that the Tron has finally found its match, not least because of his obvious relish for the many complex roles of the Tron's director – from creative producer and stage director to animator of a uniquely complex and beautiful historic building – and his magnificent track-record in responding creatively to the social and physical fabric of Glasgow itself.
"I just feel that there's no other city in which I'd like to be producing theatre," he says. "I've always felt more comfortable in Scotland than in London – maybe it is the old Irish thing, I don't know; my mother was from an Irish background. But I do feel that there is the most terrific audience for theatre here in Glasgow, and that if you put on good stuff – great plays, well done – then they will come out for it. I've always found that to be true.
"So what's my plan for the Tron? First, I want to get this wonderful building buzzing again, and open up that beautiful Victorian Bar as the focal point for Scottish theatre life it used to be, before they turned it into an upmarket restaurant. That's why, for example, I said an immediate 'yes' to Tam Dean Burn when he said he wanted to relaunch the Manifesto Club that used to perform a crazy political cabaret around various theatres in the 1980s – they're going to do that in the Victorian Bar on the last Sunday of every month.
"Then, I want to get the Tron Theatre Company re-established as a real working company, creating four or five productions a year that people are really going to want to see.
"At the Arches I tended to focus on 20th-century classics, but here I've got a feeling that I want to give Glasgow audiences 21st century classics – great contemporary plays that haven't yet been seen in Scotland. That's why I've chosen the Scottish premiere of Michael Healey's The Drawer Boy for my first production; it's an absolutely magnificent play, already acclaimed right across North America. And yes, I will be doing completely new work as well; that'll be a relatively new challenge for me, but I'm looking forward to it.
"Do I think Scottish theatre as a whole is in a good place just now? Yes, I think's interesting. I mean, I was a long-term opponent of the National Theatre of Scotland, then when it launched, with such an exciting group of people in charge, I was really keen to get involved.
"Now I think there's maybe a need to clarify its role again; it seems a bit more like just another theatre company working in Scotland, and I'd like to recapture that early sense that it was going to get really creatively engaged with other companies. But the NTS has hugely expanded the scope and range of Scottish theatre, and helped to put us absolutely on the international map. That has to be a good thing.
"And for myself, I just want to keep pushing the envelope, and exploring new possibilities; and in my book, there's no better place to be doing that than the Tron, right here and now."
&149 The Drawer Boy is at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow from 13-24 May; previews tonight and tomorrow.
The full article contains 1021 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
