SHE'S HERE! … And she’s not going away any time soon!
Pat Douthwaite: Alive and Kicking
For its ninth production and in celebration of the twentieth year of Heroica’s existence, company founders, writer Anna Carlisle and performer Alexandra Mathie, have teamed up once more and turned their attention to the life and unique art of Pat Douthwaite (1934-2002).
Pat Douthwaite: Alive and Kicking is a powerful one-woman show that pulls no punches, and shines a bright light on this wickedly undersung Scottish artist.
Douthwaite was a true maverick and a misunderstood genius. An artist of extraordinary and unique vision, she did everything in her power to dazzle the Edinburgh art scene from the 1960s to the turn of the millennium, and to both express and share her uncompromising vision of the world, especially of women. Alas, she generally went down amiss in art circles, both Scotland- and country-wide - with the exception of a mere handful of perceptive men who could find nothing but genius in her work - and the wider world was simply not ready for her. Only of more recent years are the scales falling from people’s eyes, with the works of this prolific and irrepressible painter beginning to be seen as palatable, worthy of hanging on people’s walls and invariably stunning.
And Pat Douthwaite’s private world is no less easy to witness. The production offers self-flagellating rages, outrageously demanding telephone conversations, engaging explanations of some of Douthwaite’s most notable paintings (in projected-image form) and moments of poignant self-reflection, all gently underscored by Dave Brubeck piano music (played on stage by Angie Cairns).
The production premiered in September 2024 and saw full-house performances at
The Space, Hebden Bridge Town Hall (3 performances),
National Galleries of Scotland: the Hawthornden Lecture Theatre, and
Glasgow Women’s Library,
which were followed in January 2025 by a performance at
Lyon and Turnbull, Edinburgh.
Next up, performances are scheduled for March 2025 at
The Glasgow School of Art, and
*The Lillie Art Gallery, Milngavie.
*To purchase tickets for the performance at The Lillie Gallery, Milngavie on 14th March 2025, go to https://edlc.ticketlight.co.uk/
