There is a scene in Alasdair Gray’s landmark novel Lanark in which the author himself makes an appearance. He startles the eponymous hero, one of the book’s twin protagonists, by explaining he is a work of fiction.
It is an authorial intervention too brazen for Alan Bissett to ignore. In this charming and light-footed tribute to two towering cultural figures, the actor-playwright steps out of character to fill us in on what is going on.
Because on the face of it, there is little to connect Gray, the celebrated muralist and writer, and Billy Connolly, the loquacious standup comedian, whom he encounters here. The difference is apparent in Bissett’s performance as he alternates between the two men.
As Gray, he stands hunched, eyes screwed, hands in pockets. His rendition of the author’s speech patterns is not strictly accurate, but that might have stretched credibility: Gray, who died in 2019, spoke in an extraordinarily odd combination of pauses and shrill exclamations. But Bissett gives a flavour of his verbal flourishes and buttoned-up humour.
By contrast, his Connolly is free-flowing and expansive. He strokes an imaginary mane of hair, bends extravagantly at the waist and stretches his arms wide. There is humour in his very body.
Bissett’s interjection as himself cements the impression he has already been creating. He has nothing to associate the two men beyond a photograph of them standing side by side at the launch of Lanark in Glasgow’s old Third Eye Centre in 1981. Gray is focused on signing a copy while Connolly, eyes alert, waits patiently. It could mean everything or nothing at all.
But what emerges, as Gray describes his life with ironic detachment and Connolly spins yarns before an imagined celebrity audience, is a story not about their almighty successes, but about their long and uncertain route to making their names. Had they bonded that night in Glasgow, suggests Bissett, it would have been over their inauspicious upbringings, their accidental breaks and their superhuman perseverance. If the show does not hit the dizzy peaks of Bissett’s Moira Trilogy, it is no less a thoughtful and entertaining evening in the vicarious company of two much-loved icons.
At Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh, until 23 August
