Brian Beacom

IT SEEMS so entirely Scottish we should celebrate a national failure.

But then what do we mean by failure? Dundee-born poet William Topaz McGonagall may have been ridiculed - yet his work remains discussed, debated and read today.

And there’s no doubt this Mr Bean-like music hall joke who died in poverty in 1902 was certainly prepared to suffer for his art.

Now, playwright and performer Gary McNair has deemed the life and times of the bad poet should be shared with a modern theatre audience.

Glasgow-born Gary explains how the idea of creating a play about the mid 19th century poet - who began writing after his poems were published in a newspaper - came about.

“While I was writing a show about a terrible stand-up comedian (Donald Robertson Is Not A Stand-up) I bumped into a pal and in turn he asked me if I’d every heard of McGonagall.

“I said no, and he read me some stuff and we spent hours laughing and talking about his stuff.”

McGonagall later emerged in a small, six minute theatre piece for Glasgow ‘s Oran Mor.

“But then my friend Simon Liddell was looking for a project for us to work on and he soundtracked it. It all sounded great and we decided to develop the idea into a full length play.”

Director Joe Douglas who loved the idea of Gary performing a show about McGonagall, using poetry.

Yet, the play simply isn’t about taking the mickey out of a man who struggled to become an entertainer.

“There’s a real life story there,” says Gary.

“He’s a total tragedy. He’s not just tragic at what he does, his life is full of drama and heartache.

“But what we settled on was what drove McGonagall on. We wanted to look at whether he thought he’d be famous one day, how much he was appreciated in his time and the idea if he thought he was terrible.”

Surely there must have been a degree of self-belief to keep him going?

“There is a singular report of him coming off the stage with a wry smile on his face,” says the writer, himself smiling. “That suggests he was in control of it and loved it.

“But we really don’t know if he accepted he wasn’t any good - or he simply believed the audiences didn’t quite get it, and that one day they would.

“He was often reported as saying ‘My time will come.’”

And he often blamed alcohol for audiences not getting his act.

“Regardless, the pain and the agony he went through was immense. He was starved for years, he’d survive on a glass of water and a carrot.

“He was in and out of debtors court, was pilloried in Dundee and his children were sent to prison when they tried to protect him.”

The writer believes, that if nothing else, McGonagall’’s drive was inspirational.

“On one occasion, he decided he wanted to perform before the Queen so he walked all the way to Balmoral.

“He asked to see her, she said ‘No’ and he said ‘Fine,’ and walked all the way home.

“There was a relentlessness to the man.”

But McGonagall was often duped. He was often taken advantage of by hoaxes. Once sent a fake invitation to meet the actor Sir Henry Irvine in London, the poet was turned away at the stage door.

Yet, McGonagall makes us ask questions of ourselves; how far should we go in the pursuit of a dream, when all around us is telling us we’re hopeless?

“Yes, and that goes for creating new work as an artist today,” says Gary, grinning.

“Every time you come up with something you’re not sure if others will go for it. You need belief.”

McGonagall was only ever paid to write one poem, which was an advertisement for Sunlight soap; “You can use it with great pleasure and ease - without wasting any elbow grease.”

Yes, it’s bad. But it’s so bad it’s good.

“That’s the challenge in this play,” says Gary, smiling. “To be assured that it’s good enough to be bad enough to be good.”

* McGonagall’s Chronicles, Oran Mor, until Saturday.