Not For Glory ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I have no direct Scottish background, (does an Edwardian tea planter guardian to my grandmother count?) but I have been a lover of traditional Scottish music and dance ever since as a four year old squeezed between my parents, watching our first black and white TV in 1962, I was entranced by the drone and skirl of the bagpipes, the flashing feet and swinging kilts of the White Heather Club, over sixty years ago. A passion for ceilidhs with live bands at my north London comprehensive school in the 1970s confirmed my love of the dances and music. So, a show about the competitive element and what relevance the traditions could have to the modern world, was a no brainer.

I was, I admit, a tad apprehensive when we were presented with a pot of complementary ear plugs and seated in the centre of the front row, within a breath of the pipes (and yes, they do breathe, and it is loud, and hot).

‘not for glory’ is the story of three people who have been, from their early years, champions in their individual fields: Malin Lewis is a skilled exponent of the pipes, which they have already taken beyond tradition with their memorable recordings. Scottish dance is represented by the powerful, yet graceful and utterly compelling Charlotte McLean; the Irish dance tradition, focusing on complex leg and footwork, by tall, deceptively slender but strong, indefatigable and agile Jack Anderson.

From the opening sequence, we realise, instantly, we are not in the world of the White Heather Club – not by a long way! To a loud, insistent beat and striking lighting design, the two dancers and piper perform on plinths, traditionally at first, as if in a competition, but their display almost imperceptibly changes direction from the comfortably traditional to something more visceral - exhilarating, wild, relentless, remorseless, exhausting and terrifying. One is reminded of the girl in Hans Christian Anderson’s story of The Red Shoes, who, because of her pride in her new, red dancing shoes, is doomed to dance until she dies. Her redemption is found by destroying her ability to dance and finding a life beyond, a life of the soul. The music compels Jack, Charlotte and Malin to keep moving, keep playing, even unto exhaustion. It batters and intimidates, but on some primeval level, stirs the soul. And then, they find a life, beyond.

Charlotte, Malin and Jack take us through their individual stories of why they chose their particular genre, life on the competition circuit (amusing, yet horrific), how it disillusioned and nearly broke them and how they rekindled their love for their chosen skills by breaking the rules, deconstructing (illustrated graphically, in the case of Malin’s pipes) and reshaping the traditions, fashioning their genre anew. The stories are funny, disturbing, moving and ultimately, joyful.

The striking lighting designs by Emma Jones are dramatic and unearthly, perfectly placed and timed. The costumes, by Cleo Rose McCabe, are an eye-catching modern twist on tartan kilts and trews. Malin wears an ensemble that would not be out of place in an expensive high street boutique. Jack’s trews and kilt is extremely eye catching and suits his dancing style perfectly and Charlotte’s Highland-inspired kilt makes the most of her physicality, strength and challenging presence.

The sound takes traditional music to a different place and a futuristic time, sometimes disorientating, sometimes hypnotic, whilst still maintaining that core of power, integrity and sheer Celtic bloody mindedness!

The performances are uniformly compelling. Jack leaps and capers with an extraordinary lightness of foot and suppleness of lower body, in total control of his body from the stillness of his torso, to the frantic movements taking place below. He has the grace and frantic undertow of a swan on speed. Charlotte’s Highland dancing exudes power, combined with the playful kicking and swirling that symbolically defies the incursions of the English into the Scots way of life. Malin’s pipes take on the persona of a strange creature in itself, a creature of powerful, thrilling sound or distressed, dying wails. Their solo, after reconstructing their dismembered pipes, is a thing of true beauty.

Audiences are asked to interrogate tradition, to look within themselves and explore their own creativity, to reinvent the stultified past. All things must change, develop and grow; the alternative is a lingering, inexorable death. Unlike the doomed dancer in The Red Shoes, Charlotte, Malin and Jack show us how to look within our past, to discover something new, transcendent and exciting, to build a living thing for today, and looking to the future.

And I didn’t use the earplugs. I wanted the full experience. Bring it on!