Past Projects
THEATRE PRODUCTIONS1991 October/November 'Johnny Be Happy'
Performed by Strathclyde Orchestral Productions (now Sounds of Progress) at the Mitchell Theatre, Glasgow, the Cumbernauld Theatre, and the St. Brides Theatre, Edinburgh. Directed by Gordon Dougall and Scott Johnston, Musical Director: Hilary Brookes.
1992 November 'A Walk across the Rooftops'
Performed by Strathclyde Orchestral Productions at Govan Town Hall. A para-professional musical drama set in the future, written by Roderick Stewart, with songs from the Blue Nile Album, 'A Walk Across the Rooftops'. Directed by Gordon Dougall, with Musical Directors Josephina Cupido and John Sampson.
1994 March 'Another Walk across the Rooftops'
The Old Fruitmarket, Albion Street, Merchant City, Glasgow
A cabaret / concert based on Glasgow cult band Blue Nile's ground breaking albums 'Hats' & 'A Walk Across The Rooftops' featuring comedy from Jimmy Chisholm and Fletcher Mathers. Music performed by Strathclyde Orchestral Productions using the Strathclyde Gamelan; a unique blend of professional and disabled musicians including multi-instrumentalist John A. Sampson and soulful singer Michael Cannon. Directed by Gordon Dougall. Musical Director, Ralph Haggerty, Assistant Director, Roderick Stewart. Guest Performance by Paul Buchanan, lead singer of Blue Nile.
Press quote: " Strathclyde Orchestral Productions' gallant band... ...Michael Cannon, one of the stars of the first show sings with power and grace..." David Belcher, The Herald, 16th March 1994
1994 October 'Fingal's Recovery'
The Old Fruimarket
Humorous musical with songs from Runrig's Album, 'Recovery', performed by Strathclyde Orchestral Productions and dancers including, Lawrie McNicol, Fletcher Mathers and Michelle Kelly at The Old Fruitmarket, Albion Street, Merchant City, Glasgow. Directed by Gordon Dougall, Choreography Rhona Cleland, and Musical Director Ralph Haggerty. Set on the island of Staffa, home of the Puffin, Fingal's Cave and Mendelssohn's music and now the home of RUNRIG SONGS. Fingal wants to modernise his cave much to the horror of his fellow residential Gaels. Somehow kitchen and double-glazing kits don't sit nicely on the famous Hexagonal Pillars. But when he brings his new Scottish Music back from the Gateway in the Walk O'Leith HIS CELTIC DECLARE WAR!
Press quote:
" SOP has developed a knack of bringing out the atmospheric depth in the music of Scotland's most popular groups... taking Runrig's 1983 album Recovery back to its Celtic roots and hearing it resonate round Fingals' Cave for the musical comedy 'Fingal's Recovery'."Fiona Shepherd 10th October 1994
1997 April 'The Gun' (Citizens Theatre, Gorbals, Glasgow) October November (touring Scotland)
This co-production between Sounds of Progress and Wildcat is a 90's urban Scottish musical comedy noir, a riotous fusion of funk, hip-hop, R & B, ambience and the Blues. Set in a world where teenage drug taking is normal, where extreme violence lies just beyond everyday experience, 'The Gun' tells the story of Sando and Lees. It tells of love beginning, love lost and betrayal, of Alco pop, murder and crosswords. It tells of 'The Gun'. Written by Dave Anderson, Directed by David MacLennan, Musical Co-Director, Gordon Dougall, Designer by Kenny Miller, Assistant Director and Choreographer by Rhona Cleland.
Press quote:
'The Gun' is a kind of underclass opera, powered along by the impressively adaptable band Sounds of Progress.........a wonderful mixture of urban realism, musical uplift, featuring superbly-drilled singing, dancing and acting from the teenage posse, anchored by the deep soul voice of Michael Cannon and Dave Anderson as patriarch."Colin Donald, The Scotsman, 11th October 1997
1998 Autumn: 'Children of a Lesser God' Dundee Rep and the Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow
This bi-lingual co-production between Sounds of Progress and Compania Teatrala 777 (Romania) is a love story about the relationship between a profoundly deaf young woman and an idealistic young teacher, directed by Theodor-Cristian Popescu, music composed by Gordon Dougall. It was the first collaboration between an independent Romanian theatre company and a Scottish company and the first soundtrack devised with an integrated band, working with a professional foreign partner. It was also the first production in Scotland designed for a non-hearing impaired audience.
Press quotes:
"Sharp-edged, witty exchanges sparkle between lovers and in the neatly linked sub-plot, which provides a leavening of ironic humour powerfully delivered by a cast which draws us inescapably into the world of sensory deprivation... this is a demanding, fascinating production that bludgeons the audience emotionally with the sheer passion of its performance. "John di Folco, The Stage, Sept 1998
'Children of a Lesser God' is one of the strongest "issue plays" to emerge from western theatre in the last 25 years...it has in the first place, all the strong, sexy energy and narrative drive of a good going love-story.... this fascinating production created in a trail-blazing joint project by Glasgow music company Sounds of Progress and the independent Romanian theatre group Teatrala 777 fully understands and exploits all the play's outstanding strengths."Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman, 10 Sept
1999 October 'Irreparable Dolphins' performed in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Livingston, Paisley, East Kilbride, Stirling, Dumbarton and Cumbernauld
A poetic odyssey created by Gordon Dougall and Gerry Mulgrew with SOP company members. Devised performance from interviews with the cast who perform their personal stories. The stories are from the other side of the wall the one that Humpty Dumpty fell off and had to scrabble back up by him self, having been failed by the household cavalry and all their good intentions. Added to this is a bevy of songs and music by Gordon Dougall, telling tales of sad nights and mad drummers. Directed by Gerry Mulgrew.
Press quotes:
"A persuasive and thought-provoking meditation backed by haunting video imagery on the experiences of exclusion, powerlessness and poverty...Sounds of Progress Musical Director, Gordon Dougall, has written some formidable songs for this show, some poignant, some angry and rabble-rousing...it combines a painful rawness of real experience with Mulgrew's superb theatrical craftsmanship, a discreet, inventive elegance of staging that shapes the personal stories beyond sentimentality. The effect is tremendously moving. But it also creates space for thought; and finally for the understanding that we are being offered a special vision not so much of the formidable men and women on stage, as ourselves and of the world we have made, in which they must struggle to carve out their lives."The Scotsman 4th October 19
Neil Cooper, Sunday Herald, 10th October 1999Stories that sing the troubles away
"Somewhere where the rhythm of life is different a hospital ward, say, where confinement is only solitary if you choose it to be so there are stories to be told. On the face of it, these stories are as unremarkable and as insightful as any other. As is so often the case though, the power of the tale comes in the telling, and in the case of the Reminiscence Amnesia Project, aka Sounds of Progress, the collective sting lingers long after the fact. For here are stories of courage in the face of adversity, like the girl who sings beautifully, but will never be a diva because she's not "elegant" enough for the public. Then there's the boy who deliberately falls down every few yards, to show the difference between being drunk and having no sense of balance. There are stories of 'special' schools and electric shocks, but there are stories of transgression and self-determination too. True stories all, told second hand while its author relives it all again. In between stories are songs, skilfully played by the same 12 storytellers, a well-drilled band on any level. What director, Gerry Mulgrew has done is transform these often painfully frank true life experiences of disabled but musically talented individuals and turn it into a dramatic sum of many parts that goes way beyond mere show and tell. Framing it by way of a hospital set-up lends a real weight to proceedings, and Mulgrew's sprinklings of flesh and blood physicalisation are easily recognisable, for their warmth as much as their inventiveness. Praise too for Gordon Dougall's original songs, though stars of the show are Claire Cunningham, who should be and indeed is a diva to be reckoned with, and Michael Cannon, a loungecore virtuoso extra-ordinaire, who doesn't just laugh his troubles away, but sings them into oblivion.
"It is not so much the performers overcoming a disability that impresses though when we learn that the likes of Joseph Delaney is classified as having learning difficulties (after astounding us on the keyboard, guitar, and horn) it still drops the jaw. It is the overcoming fact that they are overcoming institutions and society. This is the point that Gordon Dougall's eclectic mix of songs, and Gerry Mulgrew's stylish, unsettling production forcefully gets across...it is not a wheelchair or a muscle weakness that prevents a person achieving all they can, but prejudice and thoughtlessness. There is real theatricality to the production, with video "Robert Thomson, The Herald, 2nd October 1999
2001 February March & Summer 'A Wee Bit of How Do You Do' toured to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Bathgate, Stirling, Cumbernauld.
Created by Gerry Mulgrew and Gordon Dougall from interviews with the SOP company members.
Directed by Gerry Mulgrew, music composed by Gordon Dougall. Designed by Karen Tennent, performed by Forbes Masson, Gerda Stevenson and members of the Sounds of Progress Band.
In an abandoned Institute for Social Inclusion, a lost tribe of former inmates gather to spin takes from the margins and to evoke the ghosts of they're past. Embracing elements of the company's highly acclaimed production Irreparable Dolphins, 'A Wee Bit of How Do You Do' uses real life stories to tell of fantastic lives, with a specially commissioned score, songs and ballads performed live by the company. A surreal story set around the streets of Glasgow and the Cosmos, a powerful, emotional and funny piece of music theatre, about the human soul and the prisons we build for it.
2002 Spring: 'Brave' The Old Fruitmarket A Communicado / Sounds of Progress co-production
devised and directed by Gerry Mulgrew, music composed and directed by Gordon Dougall, artist Jacqueline Gunn, video by Rosie Gibson, lighting by Paul Sorley.
A promenade performance, specially designed for The Old Fruitmarket, using live music as a filmic wall-to-wall musical curtain to accompany the physical performance and documentary voices set within a powerful visual installation, 'Brave' explored the Indians' Trail of tears into the present day. The story of the struggle of the Cherokee in Georgia in 1838 through to the struggle of the Mohawk people of Oka near Montreal in Canada in 1990, presenting the central issues of the theft of land and sovereignty which remain unresolved.
2002 September - October 'Without a Trace' touring to The Tron Theatre Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dumfries, Stirling, Aberdeen and East Kilbride.
A journey of love, trust, betrayal, despair and self-discovery, Sounds of Progress joins forces with award winning American writer, Carol K Mack to tell the true story of Maria Paradies, a brilliant blind pianist for whom Mozart composed a piano concerto. As various prestigious doctors in Vienna attempt to cure her of her blindness, just one of them succeeds for a short time (maverick, Franz Mesmer) during which she loses her ability to play the piano. In seeking to normalise her, the medical establishment disable her. When Maria regains her blindness, she recovers her artistry. Directed by Gerda Stevenson, composed by Dee Isaacs, musical director Hilary Brooks designed by Richard Aylwin.
Press quotes:
" From beginning to end this is a lucid and poetic production, full of humanity and honesty, opening our eyes to the on-going conflict between art and science, and becoming a philosophical debate on the value of sight. Peter Kelly as the doctor caught between art and science, understanding and respecting both, is as genuine and gently human as Karina Jones' Maria is fragile and vulnerable. The sincerity of their performances makes even more cogent the mutual trust of their characters' relationship." BELIEVE IT. SEE IT.Gareth Davies THE LIST 3 17 October 2002
"This latest show from the Sounds of Progress mixed-ability music theatre company has all the hallmarks of a MAJOR EVENT IN SCOTTISH THEATRE. Directed by Gerda Stevenson, it has a beautiful, haunting stage design by Richard Aylwin, magically lit by Gerry Jenkinson, together with exquisite original music by Dee Isaacs and a near perfect theme...Karina Jones a powerful, intense Maria."Joyce MacMillan The Scotsman Wednesday 25 September 2002
The relationship between Mesmer and his patient was a fascinating one as portrayed here. Played completely straight and without a hint of crank about him by a brilliant Peter Kelly,we saw how the maverick medic needed his most famous patient as much as she needed him...Karina Jones gave a passionate and believable performance as the pianist. She conveyed a woman who wanted to believe in her sight as much as we did...Here was an unusual and entertaining show, fluently directed by Gerda Stevenson. It also contained some wonderful music, including a beautiful performance by pianist Joseph Delaney and cellist Robin Mason, of Maria Theresa Paradies's composition Sicilienne. It was, mesmerising.Kenneth Speirs The Mail on Sunday 22 September 2002
One of the real strengths of the drama, however, is that it does not rely simply upon our fascination with the big historical players. Mack's Mozart, for example has a lesser role than Maria's desperate father, and exhibits an even greater capacity for eccentricity than we see in Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus...Director Gerda Stevenson has brought all this together in a beautifully atmospheric production. Richard Aylwin's appropriately simple set, complete with a fabulous movable two-way mirror, is enveloped constantly in Gerry Jenkinson's subtle and responsive light. The performances, too, are never less than strong. Karina Jones's Maria is brilliantly taut yet exuberant, while Peter Kelly's superb playing of Mesmer only adds to oursympathy with the character.Mark Brown Scotland on Sunday 22 September 2002
Stevenson's staging is the highlight of this production. At first the setting's singular combination of mirror, tree and musical ensemble seems not just peculiar, but overtly complicated. But since the subject matter is a pianist who gains her sight but loses her talent, this surreal triptych proves very quickly to be a highly original way of creating visual depth and adding layers meaning.Tim Abrahams Sunday Herald 22 September 2002
"Exit, pursued by a bear" may be the most memorable stage direction in theatrical history but " Enter preceded by a bear" runs pretty close, especially when the bear promptly examines the audience through opera glasses...Mack, an American writer with a growing reputation, is not the first to be drawn to the story of Maria Theresa Paradies, the blind pianist who charmed the salons of 18th Century Europe...there is a powerful performance from Karina Jones in a generally ambitious piece of work.Robert Dawson Scott The Times Friday 20 September 2002
2005 March April 'Heal!'
Touring Scotland including The Tron Theatre , Glasgow
2006 January - June
An NTS 'Connecting Communities' initiative, Performance at Clydebank Town Hall on 27 June Life, Stories & Dreams is a multimedia artistic installation project using personal testimonies from twenty young people and twenty adults with mixed abilities from West Dunbartonshire and Inverclyde. Directed by Gordon Dougall, Music by Nigel Dunn, Movement by Linda Payne, Drama by Liam Hurley, Visual Artist by Keith McIntyre, Sound Design by Chrys Lindop.
Connecting Communities is an unprecedented programme bringing together the very best theatre created inclusively and to show case the results in a celebration of the most cutting edge theatre in Scotland. Communities from Russia, Sweden, Stornoway, Clydebank, Glasgow and Edinburgh will connect and create new theatrical forms that combine innovation and imagination with integration and accessibility in its broadest definition.
Thanks to the funders: The National Theatre of Scotland (NTS), Arts & Business, The Robertson Trust, Glasgow City Council, Garwood Monitor Systems Ltd, Lloyds TSB, West Dunbartonshire and Inverclyde Council.