Brian Beacom

IT’S FAIR to say Iain Beggs didn’t spend a great deal of his time growing up in Barra learning the Argentine tango.

“I’m not much of a dancer but I seem to have picked it up ok now,” says the young actor smiling.

And that’s very fortunate because the twenty-six year-old plays a ballroom dance teacher in Last Tango in Partick, Oran Mor’s play this week written by Alison Lang.

Iain has been working his socks off, almost literally, trying to convince he is a master of the dance of love.

And the dance skill is crucial. The plotline features Moira, (Mairi Morrison) whose children having flown the nest finds herself bored rigid.

Life with husband Iain just isn’t doing it for her. So she decides to dust off the old dancing shoes and liven things up with some strictly ballroom magic, where she meets Lachaidh, played by Iain.

And over the next few weeks, Moira comes to look at her life with her husband Iain (David Walker) through a very different eye.

“It’s really about a woman who has become lost,” says Iain.

Acting calls for performers to throw themselves into unusual situations. Iain smiles as he reveals he’s faced interesting challenges in the past.

“I did a play last year in which I was a smackhead,” he says.

“And I appeared in a TV show playing a gym buff, where I had to cover my body in fake tan.

“But it wasn’t so bad in that I was going to the gym at the time. And I like the idea of getting into unusual situations.”

Iain, now based in Glasgow, fell into acting. He was working as a marketing officer for a Gaelic arts agency when he was drafted in one night to help with the reading of scripts.

“I got called in to make up the numbers and writer actress Catriona Lexy Campbell was there. She put my name forward for the TV drama Bannan and I was asked to audition.”

Iain landed the job with the TV drama filmed on the Isle of Skye and went on to film twenty episodes. He’s been a full-time actor for two years now.

But he admits he had always had a hankering for performance.

“When I was young I was a bit of a show-off but I went to university (in Skye) and then got into a bit of acting.

There weren’t too many opportunities for hopeful actors growing up on an island with a population of 1200.

But Iain says Barra was a great place to grow up.

“What’s different about it is you grow up having pals of all ages,” he says, “from teenagers to men in their fifties.

“And there was lots of freedom on an island with no danger. You could wander into anyone’s house.

“But school wasn’t great. There were lots of problems with HM Inspectorate, and teachers themselves.

“For example, the first couple of years in secondary I didn’t have a music teacher, which is really when you should be introduced to music.”

But he found his direction in life and is excited to be part of Last Tango In Partick, a co-production between Oran Mor and the National Theatre of Scotland.

The play is performed in Gaelic, with English subtitles and “smatterings of English”.

“As the dance teacher I speak to the class in English,” says Iain.

The actor’s first language is of course Gaelic. “I didn’t learn English until I went to school.”

He adds, grinning; “I remember how my first English conversation with my brother came about one break time.

“A boy passing by overheard us speaking Gaelic and said ‘Don’t worry, we’re out of class now. We can speak English!’ And I turned to my brother and said (in English, with very strong Highland accent) ‘Hello there, Donald. How are you today?’”

Iain seems to have the hang of English now. “Almost,” he says, laughing.

But what happens with Lachaidh and Moira? Is she dancing? Is he asking? It takes two to tango.

“I can’t say,” says Iain, grinning. “All I can tell you right now is I’m working very hard to remember to keep my back straight.”

• Last Tango in Partick, Oran Mor, until Saturday.