Small Audience, Big Picture

Abstract

After John's death, I scanned my diaries for memories of our meetings. I found an entry about going up to the Highlands to see one of his productions. It was There Is a Happy Land, a people's history of the Highlands in songs and stories, from pre-Christianity and the clan chiefs to absentee landlords and NATO bases. I'd commissioned him to make a TV version of it for Channel 4, filming the live performance on the road in faraway villages, school halls, community centres, mixing its bold acting and gorgeous songs and dance tunes with the elating Scottish landscape, with documents of history and economics. He made this piece, as he made all his cornerstone work, for his 7:84 company – its title pointing to the fact that seven per cent of the population owned 84 per cent of the wealth.