Martin Aitken
PIBROCH
Producer
Created in early 2022 and embarking on its first national tour in spring 2023, Pibroch is a one-act play performed by John Bolland, developed from John’s poetry collection of the same name.
Pibroch explores the Climate Emergency through parallels with the Piper Alpha Disaster in 1988. Specifically, it examines the personal and social experience of finding oneself on a ‘burning platform’ with a pressing need for change but limited options.
Photo credit: Graeme Rodger
Based on first-hand experience, detailed research into the Piper Alpha disaster and analysis of a wide range of sources on Climate Change, the play uses the traditional pipe-tune, Cumha na Cloine/Lament for the Children by Padraig Mor McCrimmon, as a framework – highlighting the direct Scottish links of Piper, piping and pibroch with grief for our children.
As in the original pibroch, the play develops in four movements: Urlar, Dithis, Suibhal and Taorluth. In each movement words and music shifts back and forth between the specifics of the Piper Alpha disaster to the general predicament of Climate Change as it is experienced now and as it will play-out globally in the course of the 21st century.
Photo credit: Graeme Rodger