Seven Eighty Four/Oor Hamlet

Subject: Seven Eighty Four/Hamlet
From: Chris Seymour
Date: 18 May 99 - 08:37 PM

Adam McNaughtan's song "Our Hamlet" (hilarious, if you've not heard it -- summarizes the entire play in about five minutes of singing) has a line with a reference I don't get:

Then a troupe of traveling actors, like Seven-Eighty-Four Arrive to do a special one-night gig in Elsinore...

Is/was 784 an itinerant UK acting group? Or what?

Please enlighten, if you know.

Subject: RE: Seven Eighty Four/Hamlet
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 18 May 99 - 11:26 PM

Hi- 784 was (is?) a politically-oriented touring theater group.

Subject: RE: Seven Eighty Four/Hamlet
From: Alex
Date: 19 May 99 - 12:40 AM

7:84 was a Scottish theatrical group of whom one of the founders was Joe Corrie, a Fifeshire coal miner. After the general strike of 1926, he was out of work and got a few friends and neighbours together. He wrote the plays and is also held in high regard as a poet. The Battlefield Band's Alan Reid has set several of his poems to music ("I Am The Common Man", "Miner's Wives" and "The Image Of God") The troupe's title represented the fact that 7% of the people in the country controlled 84% of the wealth.

Subject: RE: Seven Eighty Four/Hamlet
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 19 May 99 - 05:39 PM

My friend Jim Armour has written a clever parody along the same lines called MacBeth again.
To my surprise Heather told me that Adam McNaughtan was her teacher in school. She wasn't aware that he was a songwriter.

Subject: RE: Seven Eighty Four/Hamlet
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 May 99 - 09:21 PM

Hey, Rick, do you think you can talk your friend Jim into letting you post the lyrics to "Macbeth"? I'd sure like to hear it.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Seven Eighty Four/Hamlet
From: Chris Seymour
Date: 19 May 99 - 10:48 PM

Thanks much for the information on 7:84, and ditto on the posting of "Macbeth Again."

This is truly a wonderful resource!

Subject: RE: Seven Eighty Four/Hamlet
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 20 May 99 - 07:53 PM

Adam himself has also written up MacBeth in four verses since. He recorded it for his recent CD 'Last Stand at Mount Florida'. I'll try and post the words within the next few weeks. I can't remember what the tune is to this one. 'Oor Hamlet' is sung to The Mason's Apron. - Susanne

Subject: RE: Seven Eighty Four/Hamlet
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 21 May 99 - 10:13 AM

In 1972 I toured Scotland with a couple of friends (as a tourist, not a musician - I'm still waiting for offers!). Everywhere we went, we'd either jsut missed or were just too early to see 7:84 do "The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Back Oil". Presumably this wasn't Joe Corrie! A few months later, they performed it on BBC tv; and excellent viewing it was.

I haven't seen them since, although I heard their name a couple of times i the years following.

Steve

Subject: RE: Seven Eighty Four/Hamlet
From: Alex
Date: 22 May 99 - 12:58 AM

I remember seeing "The Cheviot . . " on TV. very good! The MacBeth tune is a variant on "A Soldier's Joy"

Subject: RE: Seven Eighty Four/Hamlet
From: Philippa
Date: 22 May 99 - 04:04 AM

I saw 7:84 perform a new play - about politicians -in Skye just last autumn

Subject: RE: Seven Eighty Four/Hamlet
From:
Date: 29 May 06 - 08:46 PM

The reference to '784' is, I think upon hearing Adam McNaughtan singing Oor Hamlet, a reference to 'Local 784'; presumably a chapter of a theatre guild.

Subject: RE: Seven Eighty Four/Hamlet
From: Effsee
Date: 29 May 06 - 09:26 PM

The Theartre Group 7:84 took their name from the fact that seven percent of the population of Scotland owned eighty four percent of the land/wealth of the country. I can't remember which.

Subject: RE: Seven Eighty Four/Hamlet
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 30 May 06 - 05:10 AM

Or as one of my more cynical friends put it when John McGrath
had become an alternative-theatre institution, "did you know
that 7% of Scotland's theatre companies get 84% of the Arts
Council grants?"

Subject: RE: Seven Eighty Four/Hamlet
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 16 Jun 22 - 05:48 PM

Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/7:84

BBC Bitewise notes
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zcp9j6f/revision/1

BBC Freethinking
Bill Paterson is a founding member of the 7:84 company established by John McGrath, his wife Elizabeth and her brother to create radical, popular theatre.
Anne McElvoy looks at the writing of John McGrath with Bill Paterson, theatre critic Joyce McMillan and Joe Douglas,,,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0017tzt
44minutes

Subject: RE: Seven Eighty Four/Oor Hamlet
From: weerover
Date: 18 Jun 22 - 06:03 AM

7:84 made a vinyl single (remember them?) of "The John MacLean March" with a spoken intro by Bill Paterson from a speech by MacLean. It is one of about a dozen versions of the song I have, including one by Hamish Henderson himelf.