New play claims Vettriano is The Singing Butler

Sunday Herald, The, Apr 10, 2005 by Senay Boztas Arts Correspondent

JACK VETTRIANO could be the "singing butler" of his most famous painting, a working man who used the arts to better himself, according to the director of a new BBC play.

Lu Kemp, who is working on a BBC Radio 4 afternoon play about the most valuable work by a living Scottish artist, said the subject has important resonances with the painter himself.

"There are a few recorded details of singing butlers and it became a social thing, " she said. "It is that desire to be engaging with an artistic life to better yourself. And Vettriano makes a great deal of being a working-class boy with aspirations, " she said.

The BBC has commissioned the piece from the playwright Alexis Zegerman, together with a poem by Scottish poet and Sunday Herald contributor Ron Butlin, imagining the thoughts of the painter as he created the piece. It has the artist's"verbal blessing".

Although the Scottish Arts Council famously refused the work and the National Galleries of Scotland continue to exclude Vettriano from their collections, the play is being created in commemoration of the work, which was recently auctioned for a recordbreaking pounds-744,800.

"One in three Britons owns this image, " said Kemp. "I bought the image when I first saw it as it has enormous power, whatever you think of him as an artist.

"We wanted to imagine the story behind it. We were going to have Vettriano in interview, but for various reasons it hasn't worked out. But he has given us permission to do the play."

Butlin was chosen to write a poem about the creative process of the artist after a recent residency at the National Galleries - and also for his own life experience.

"Ron was appropriate as he used to be a footman and was trained by a butler in London, " said Kemp.

The team has investigated records of singing butlers in the last century, explaining that they were apparently recognised for developing artistic skills unusual for their social class. The play itself will imagine the dramatic story behind Vettriano's picture, interspersed with Butlin's poem on the artistic creation.

Butlin, who has just won a second French prize, le Prix Lucioles, for his novel The Sound Of My Voice, said: "The poem is going to be in four or five pieces to slot into the drama, starting with a blank canvas and ending up with the full picture.

"As an image, The Singing Butler is quite strong. It is a celebration of innocence."

However, some academics are more sceptical about historical sources for this phenomenon. Professor Robert Morris, of Edinburgh University, an expert in social and economic history, said:

"I have heard of the singing butlers in casual conversation, but it sounds like one of those lovely urban myths.

"You can read it in a number of ways: here is a butler who taught himself, someone trying to get an introduction into the music hall, an unemployed singer who went to the servants' registry office and used his talents at work."

Giles Waterfield, joint curator of Below Stairs, an exhibition about servants at the National Portrait Galleries in London and touring to Edinburgh, added: "Butlers are usually known for drinking or stealing the wine, not singing. I think it is an invention of the artist."

Vettriano could not be contacted for a comment.