EASTERN PROMISE

Talk about spoilt brats. The boss of the National Theatre of Scotland, Vicki Featherstone, is getting all tetchy with journalists asking her why she doesn’t want the company to move to a brand new £9.5 million building in Easterhouse. ‘I don’t want to talk about that’, she moans, ‘why aren’t you talking about all the great plays we put on?’

Here's why, Vicki - but it's not like you don't know already.

Easterhouse. Easterhouse, for all of you who don’t know, is a scummy housing scheme in the East End of Glasgow. I should know, my auntie lives there. Like any scheme, it’s not perfect but it’s not that bad. At least the people there are decent. The only reason the place got the money for a ‘flagship cultural centre’ is because the area’s so deprived it qualifies for EU social funding. It needs a cultural centre like I need penis enlargement.

I suspect Ms Featherstone’s excuse is not, as she claims, because the building’s too small to house the NTS and their 22 core staff. If that’s the case, the building must have shrunk in the rain because almost ten million quid is a lot of cash in anybody’s book. No. The reason she doesn’t want to be in Easterhouse is because it’s Easterhouse – and she’s too much of a snob to admit it. After all, you’d be hard-pressed to run out at lunchtime for sushi and green tea in Easterhoose, a place where a lot of folk have never seen a potato in the raw.

So while a shiny new building lies vacant, the Scottish taxpayer’s coughing up for temporary offices in Glasgow city centre. Never mind the fact that the Scottish Executive is chucking money at what is essentially a private business, a production company by any other name. It’s hard to imagine a film or TV company being funded to the tune of £7.6 million a year out of the public coffers. Talk about wanting your cake and eating it. Not content with hefty five-figure salaries – for instance – Marketing Manager at 55K a year and a website so flashy it doesn’t work – Vicki probably won’t be happy until the National Theatre gets its own palace, with a five star hotel and spa attached.

My solution? Ms Featherstone could do worse than go to the Scottish Screen website and check out their Locations superb Build Space pdf file that lists some of the best – and biggest – empty spaces in the country. Surely one of these ex-industrial buildings would be big enough to house her ego, her staff and all her thespy pals. Somehow I doubt it...