It’s quite hard to take for some people: Glenna’s play set for Glasgow run
Glenna Morrison’s play Guffy is, in her own words, a hard-hitting piece of social realism with “nothing glitzed or glammed over”.
Centred around three generations of one family, it was part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2023.
Now the actress from Wick is bringing it back to the stage – this time for a short run in Glasgow next month.
Cast members will again be Georgia Blue Ireland in the title role, as a struggling single mum, and Ceit Kearney as Alba, Guffy’s mother.
Glenna (53) is now based in Alloa, Clackmannanshire, and Guffy is her first venture into playwriting.
Two years ago Glenna described it as “an allegorical tale” on the theme of Scotland’s past, present and potential future and she hasn’t altered that viewpoint.
“I still stand by that and I still see it as that,” she said. “In some ways it has developed for me as well in some ways.
“It is really a tale of Scotland – but because I’ve seen such a change in the social standing of so many people around Alloa, and around the communities that I work with and live in, I really think she’s a very poignant character.
“I always thought it was a story that needed to be told, but I think now more than ever.
“She [Guffy] struggles with her mental health and she struggles with her mother’s dementia.
“I wasn’t so sure initially [about putting the play on again]. I like to look at a project, do it to my best fully, and complete it and then it’s over.
“But I’ve been inspired by the cast’s enthusiasm to do it and thought it was heart-warming that they wanted to perform my play again.
“I thought, well, I owe them that, to do it and to give it my best again. But I’ve taken a back seat on producing it as much this time, so I’m sharing the producing with Georgia.”
Guffy was originally supported by Pitlochry Festival Theatre as part of the Edinburgh National Partnerships programme. It was performed at the Pleasance Courtyard Venue 33 in August 2023.
“We called it the Marmite of the festival at one point,” Glenna pointed out.
“We started marketing it as that because on one hand you had people like The Stage calling it a searing slice of social realism and then on the other hand you had the Guardian who said it was basically poverty porn. So it was a very stark contrast and we found that that’s how people took it.
“It’s social realism. There’s nothing glitzed or glammed over – it’s very real.
“It’s quite hard-hitting and quite hard to take for some people. But if that’s the kind of theatre you like then that is what we’re delivering.
“We had a lot of people who couldn’t make it and said they’d love to see it, and I think it was really from that that we decided to do it again.”
Guffy will be at the GWR venue at 1051 Great Western Road, Glasgow, from April 10-12, with five hour-long shows across the three days.
Glenna says it is a “very adaptable space”. She has tweaked the writing and is looking at changing the staging.
Dominic de Montfalcon will be in charge of lights and sound.
Meanwhile, Glenna is seeking funding for a short film project called White Settlers, based in the Highlands in the 1980s. She hopes it can be shot in Wick this summer.
Glenna left Wick at 18 to train in London and has worked professionally in theatre, film and TV for more than 30 years.
She is the daughter of David Morrison, the well-known Wick poet, painter, editor and librarian who died in 2012, and his wife Edna. Her brother Ewan is an award-winning novelist, scriptwriter and essayist.
A former pupil of Pulteneytown Academy and Wick High, she trained at London's East 15 Acting School and, after graduating, formed Les Fleurs du Mal Theatre Company.
Her stage roles have ranged from Charlotte Brontë to Björk as well as the character Allison in Trainspotting, while her TV work has included The Bill, Taggart, Two Thousand Acres of Sky, Casanova and River City.
Her lead role in Hearing Things co-starring Felicity Jones won them a best film award at the Moondance International Film Festival.
Last summer, in a recording for the Wick Voices oral history project, Glenna told how her experiences with Wick Players from an early age helped her on the way to a career in acting.
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