³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

The UK's leading artists continue their campaign against government cuts to arts funding.

They plan to release a new artwork every week to highlight their protest.

Scotland-based David Shrigley launched the campaign in September with a piece of video art and since then both Mark Wallinger and Yinka Shonibare have added their contributions.

The point, say artists, who are asking supporters to sign a petition which will be sent to UK culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, is that the feared 25% cuts to arts funding will irreversibly damage a vibrant arts culture which has taken decades to build.

In the latest, Cornelia Parker shows the impact of cutting a quarter of resources - by literally lopping a wing off the Angel of the North.

But commendable as the campaign is, there's a growing cultural quarter that doesn't fear the loss of arts council or government funding because it doesn't get any in the first place.

This lunchtime, I squeezed into the packed Oran Mor theatre in Glasgow for a special performance to mark the 200th Play and a Pie and Pint production.

Since artistic director David MacLennan founded it in 2004, the strand has commissioned new writing from a diverse range of writers from Liz Lochhead and Alasdair Gray to Gregory Burke, Douglas Maxwell and DC Jackson.

For published writers like Louise Welsh, Denise Mina and Alan Bissett, it's been a first foray into playwriting. For others, it's been a chance to experiment - with their short plays expanded into full-length works.

It's a challenging format - a 45-minute play designed to be consumed along with the aforementioned pie and pint in a lunch hour.

Two-minute plays

No less for the actors, who have to ramp up the tension in a room full of people intent on consuming their lunch, as much as some bon mots.

But the event has become something of a cult success on the theatre scene - both in terms of audience (it's been expanded into Edinburgh and London) and in terms of developing new writing.

It's also a rare example of an arts project which survives, not on public funding but on the box office and the bar, the goodwill of the owners and a modest amount of private sponsorship.

Its success is made even sweeter by the fact that David MacLennan's long-term involvement with Wildcat Theatre came to an abrupt end in 1997 when the then Scottish Arts Council withdrew its funding.

So he has better reason than most to raise a pint, and a pie, to his 200th production. And no ordinary show at that.

To mark the milestone, he's commissioned 40 new plays by 40 writers, all on the theme of Glasgow Then and Now.

The catch - they have to be no more than two minutes long - to fit as many as possible into the lunch hour.

"Dave MacLennan, asked me to write a two-minute play. I said give me a couple of minutes," is veteran screenwriter Peter MacDougall's opening gambit.

Glasgow gangland

From then on in, there's barely time for a mouthful of food between scenes - signposted music-hall style with a banner proclaiming the location.

From Jane Austen in Glasgow gangland to the slave trade connections between Glasgow and Virginia, a wasp in a wine glass, a Govan shipyard accident.

Some are silly, or funny, others thoughtful and poignant.

There's music in Butterfly Kiss and Andy Gray's crowd pleasing send up of Judi Dench - singing Send in the Pies, rather than Send in the Clowns.

No one dares go to the bathroom, in case you miss a whole play. Or two.

And there's no need to worry if one play doesn't appeal, another will be along in two minutes, which is more than can be said for the Glasgow train which the entire cast are left waiting for in the final scene.

I stopped counting at 20 plays - which makes it great value for a tenner. And even more for the audience on Saturday, who get all 40 plays, not to mention a pie.