As with many Ivor Cutler works, the genre is impossible to identify. Written intermittently over a period of more than a decade, these twenty cameos emerged initially in performance – not usually more than one or two per set – from 1970 onwards. Episodes were sprinkled haphazardly into several record releases, as part of the Cutler mix of songs and spoken word. And there was an album containing thirteen episodes, performed for an audience in Glasgow in 1977, which was released in 1978. The complete collection was first published as a book in 1984.
Methuen’s first edition describes Life in a Scotch Sitting Room as – ‘a haunting and humorous collection of autobiographical fragments’. The many references to Scotland, and the tokens of Scottish culture (thistles, porridge, kilts etc.) apparently led many to assume the episodes to be an autobiographical account. Ivor had no reason to discourage that belief; on the contrary he played up to it.
Life in a Scotch Sitting Room evokes a particular perspective on life, and could aptly be subtitled:Â the unbearable heaviness of being. The awkwardness, intense embarrassment and shame of self-conscious embodiment within a pressurised and confined family environment; the horror of uncontrollable bodily functions and emotions; the forbidden desires and uncontainable curiosities of children – this is all here – together with the unfathomable and hypocritical rules of the supposedly adult world with its arbitrary and cruel punishments for any transgressions.
