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Groudbreaking play takes anti-sectarian message to Barlinnie jail
CELL OUT: Des Dillon, writer of anti-sectarian play "Singin` I`m No a Billy He`s a Tim", sees Barlinne Prison from the inside.
 By Chris Watt
As more than one prison wag observed, it brought a whole new dimension to the term "captive audience".
Inmates at HMP Barlinnie were treated yesterday to an afternoon at the theatre. But while the performance was a rare perk for men at one of Scotland's toughest prisons, officials believe the play will leave a serious impression in prisoners' minds.
With its anti-sectarian morals and unflinching realism, Des Dillon's Singing I'm No Billy He's a Tim has been hailed as groundbreaking theatre since it first appeared 12 years ago.
Authorities at the Glasgow prison believed the play could be an effective plank in their rehabilitation work, presenting a stimulating and memorable focal point to drive home their anti-bigotry message.
And, as the normally raucous crowds at Scotland's largest prison quietened down for the emotionally fraught performance, it seemed they were willing to give it a chance.
Speaking before the curtain went up, writer Des Dillon displayed no sign of nerves about how his work would go down.
"To be honest, I was more worried about doing it at the Edinburgh Festival," he said. "These are the people it was written for, really, and it went down a storm at Polmont a few years ago."
The set, a cramped police cell and adjoining office, was certainly one every spectator in Barlinnie's prison chapel could relate to. Officials observed that the plot, in which a Celtic fan and a Rangers fan are locked up together during an Old Firm derby, becoming reconciled in the process, seemed custom-designed for yesterday's audience.
The entrance of the first characters, one with his arm twisted behind his back by a surly turnkey, was met with a cheer of the kind not normally heard in the Theatre Royal's dress circle.
Ninety minutes of intense drama followed, structured like the two halves of the football game, and every joke and comedy gesture sent belly laughs echoing through the cold confines of the Victorian jailhouse. The audience fell silent as the emotional pace picked up, and Barlinnie staff seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when the warden character onstage was revealed to have a heart of gold.
As the prisoners shuffled back to their cells after wild applause marked the end of the show, it was too early to tell whether Dillon's message of had made any inroads.
But for Vinnie Gunn, Barlinnie's residential manager, the play was simply a "starting block" for a wider programme of anti-sectarian instruction.
"There is a real issue with sectarianism, not just in Glasgow but in the whole of Scotland. We see it first hand here - there's guys in this prison that committed their offences because of sectarian issues," he said.
"If we can actually teach them to stop doing that it'll make a difference. If they can then teach their kids, then that's the only way we'll stop sectarianism. It's a whole society change we need."
Deputy governor Rhona Hotchkiss stressed that the afternoon was not "just somebody coming in and doing a nice play for the prisoners", but instead was meant "to challenge their attitudes and how they relate to each other, and then how they relate to people outside".
She said: "One of our jobs is to try and help people not offend again, and what lies at the base of offending for a lot of people in here is the inability to communicate, or to think before they act, or to look at people and see the human in the other person.
"Everything we do in Barlinnie is about that: about getting people to think before they act, and to think about the future instead of what's standing in front of them now."
Whether the event's popularity with prisoners was down to its shrewd examination of serious issues - or simply because it was a chance to escape the cells for the afternoon - remains to be seen.
However, the number of inmates going out of their way to thank the play's author was evidence at least that they were willing to give the prison's unconventional methods a fair hearing.
And the cast and crew, preparing to take Singing I'm No Billy He's a Tim on the road, can rest assured that they have faced their toughest audience yet.
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