Overview
'She has, to my knowledge, an almost unblemished record in never having
failed to spot a great new play...' Philip Howard, from his Foreword
Joyce McMillan has been writing about theatre in Scotland for more than
three decades. As drama critic successively for The Guardian, Scotland
on Sunday and The Scotsman, she has reviewed thousands of plays. During
that time she has borne witness to an extraordinary cultural and
political renaissance in Scotland, reflected in the newfound confidence
of its playwrights, in the vibrancy of its theatre culture and in its
recent outburst of new theatre companies. Compiled by McMillan and the
theatre director, Philip Howard, Theatre in Scotland is a panoramic
history of modern Scottish theatre, reported from the frontline. It
traces the remarkable journey of Scottish theatre towards its new
self-confidence: the road to 1990, when Glasgow was European Capital of
Culture; followed by the explosive expansion of the 1990s; culminating
in the emergence of the National Theatre of Scotland and its drive to
bring theatre culture right into the heart of the nation.Gathered here
are the leading Scottish playwrights, from John Byrne to Liz Lochhead,
from David Greig to David Harrower, as well as the full breadth of
English playwrights, from Shakespeare to Pinter.
There are reflections on the great Scottish plays, classic - Ane Satyre
of the Thrie Estaitis, Men Should Weep - and modern - Black Watch, The
James Plays. There are reports not only from the urban theatre centres
of Edinburgh and Glasgow but from all over Scotland; and from the feast
that is the Edinburgh Festival, to the nourishing A Play, A Pie and A
Pint. A leading thinker and writer about Scotland, McMillan has an
incomparable ability to detect the wider cultural resonances in Scottish
theatre, and to reveal what it can tell us about Scotland as a whole.
Her book serves as a portrait of a nation and a shared cultural life,
where visions of 'what we have been, what we are, and what we might
become' are played out in sharp focus on its stages. 'When Scottish
theatre works [its] magic over the coming years, I will be there, to try
to catch the moment in print, and to tell it as it was.And believe me,
on the good nights and the bad ones, the privilege will be mine: to be
paid to go looking for joy, and occasionally to find it.' Joyce McMillan