the MCs:

Ian Smith – I became involved in the whole NRLA shebang as the Zap Club MC in the mid-‘80s when initial collaborations were made, and popped into the role of NRLA MC sometime during the ‘90s. I honestly don’t know how many I’ve done.

I have seen everything from astonishing brilliance to astonishing arrogance presented by senior and junior artists alike. The battle-scarred veterans have stories to tell and attitudes to explore that the innocent could not (and should not) pretend to approach. But by the same token, fresh eyes see the present human condition in a way that cannot be glimpsed through the cataracts of hard-won experience.

Neil Bartlett – a hard, crowded day of angry people wanting to know why there were two naked women asleep in a barbed wire cage in the middle of a gallery space plastered with homophobic newspaper headlines at the Third Eye…  “manning” the front door in full drag in the middle of a riotous Nottingham Saturday night and sweet-talking a couple of drunks lads from the pub on the other side of the street in to see the Brittonioni Brothers… Making the crowd form a human chain to drag me and my stilettoes up the one in four hill to the Glasgow Art School so I could introduce a symposium on Form and Politics in Contemporary Performance… sitting in front of my mirror and putting on full slap and a fright wig and a fake Chanel suit and enough fake pearls to break your wrist and squeezing my aching feet back into four-inch heels at nine the next morning and feeling both absolutely knackered and absolutely exhilarated to be facing another fifteen-hour, hundred-artist day of argument, posturing, theorising, failure, possibility – and intimate beauty.

Bob Pringle (Production Manager at Third Eye Centre) :

“BLOOD and MILK, TOTAL CONFIDENCE and BLIND PANIC, LATE NIGHTS and EARLY MORNINGS, SHEEPS HEADS and ROCK SALT, LOVE and LOVE, SOUND and LIGHT, ARTISTS and CREW, CUTTING EDGE and CUTTING FLESH, DEREK JARMAN and TILDA SWINTON, TOTAL FRUSTRATION and TOTAL EXHILARATION, CIGARETTES and ALCOHOL, TRAINS and PLANES, FORCED ENTERTAINMENT and DOGS IN HONEY, MACLENNAN and SCENA PLASTYCZNA, DEVIANTS AND DV8, CONFLICT and RESOLUTION, VELOCITY and PRECISION, NEIL BARTLETT and IAN SMITH, THE BEST OF TIMES and OCCASIONALLY, THE WORST OF TIMES, BLACKLEDGE and BAKER, EMERGING ARTISTS and OLD HEADS, COMMUNITY and SUPPORT, SIZZLING ENERGY and UTTER EXHAUSTION, MILICAN and MILICAN and MY FAVOURITE GIG EVER.

Will Potts (Production Manager 2010)

Splintered glass, bags of human hair and KY lubricated baseball bats, to name a few items involved in the unique race of technical management vs The Programme in all its glory. Risk assessment technique, patience, and crucial friendships tested to the max. 5 crew for 8 hours to mop the stage once at Tramway. CCA cleaners coincidentally receive brand new uniforms to appear live on stage. Specialist disinfection, biohazard and sharps removal, all in a day’s work. My crew ride bikes through the traffic to get between venues in time to help our artists achieve their visions: “Thats the wrong kind of lamb’s carcass”; “I can’t drink all of this vodka if I didn’t buy it at the bar?” Some did not speak English and wielded surgical scalpels instead of paperwork. Some just preferred not to speak at all.  And then there are the bad bits: Don’t get me started!    l-s-d.design