Traverse Theatre

*Warning, this episode contains strong language and is not suitable for children*

TravCast is the Writer's Podcast from the Traverse, Scotland’s New Writing Theatre. Associate Director, Hamish Pirie, interviews well known playwrights whose work features in the year round programme at the Traverse.

In this episode, Hamish Speaks to John Byrne.

One of Scotland’s great polymaths, Byrne was born in Paisley in 1940. He was destined to work in the carpet factories that form the setting of his debut trilogy before being accepted as a Fine Art student at The Glasgow School of Art. In a career spanning almost 40 years he has written for the stage, radio and TV with highlights including The Slab Boys, Tutti Frutti and Your Cheatin’ Heart, and versions of Russian classics The Government Inspector, Uncle Vanya and The Cherry Orchard. Premiering in Edinburgh in 1978, The Slab Boys went on to be staged in New York with a cast that included Kevin Bacon, Val Kilmer and Sean Penn. Byrne is also an acclaimed artist. In the early ‘60s he designed covers for Penguin Books and later went on to design record covers for artists including Donovan, The Beatles, Gerry Rafferty and Bill Connolly. Several of his paintings are in the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland and he has had a number of high profile exhibitions in recent years.

Original music by James Iremonger www.jamesiremonger.co.uk

Produced and engineered by Cian O Siochain

TravCast is the Writer's Podcast from the Traverse, Scotland’s New Writing Theatre. Associate Director, Hamish Pirie, interviews well known playwrights whose work features in the year round programme at the Traverse.

In this episode, Hamish Speaks to Jenna Watt. Jenna is an award winning live artist, director and theatre maker. Her other works include Little Vikings are Never Lost (The Arches, National Review of Live Art) and It's OK, It's Only Temporary; the apple smashing piece (The Arches, Forest Fringe, Edinburgh Peer Group, The Basement).

Jenna has directed and created work for The National Theatre of Scotland, Traverse Theatre, Lung Ha's Theatre Company, Forest Fringe, The Arches, Edinburgh Science Festival, The Basement and the National Review of Live Art.

Original music by James Iremonger www.jamesiremonger.co.uk

Produced and engineered by Cian O Siochain

TravCast is the Writer's Podcast from the Traverse, Scotland’s New Writing Theatre. Associate Director, Hamish Pirie, interviews well known playwrights whose work features in the year round programme at the Traverse.

In this episode, Hamish speaks to Iain Finlay MacLeod. Iain Finlay MacLeod is a playwright, screenwriter and novelist based on the Isle of Lewis. Alongside his work as a writer he also works as a director on both single and multi-camera projects.

Iain’s original stage plays include Somersaults (NTS), The Bends (Playwrights Studio/RSAMD), The Pearlfisher, I was a Beautiful Day, Homers and Alexander Salamander or The Story of a Teenage Pyromaniac, all for the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh. He also adapted David Lescot’s play Une Homme en Faillte as Broke for the Traverse. I addition, Iain Finlay has written Atman and Salvage for Tosg Theatre and the libretto for The Silver Bough which was produced by Youth Music Theatre UK.

Iain also collaborated on the multimedia opera St Kilda which was performed in English, French and Gaelic at the Edinburgh International Festival 2009. The production, for which Iain wrote the libretto and wrote and directed the filmed elements was originally performed in 2007 in six European venues simultaneously, which were linked by live satellite connection with St Kilda.

Iain has also written extensively for radio including The Summer Walking which was adapted from his play The Pearl Fisher, White Nights and Raven Black both adapted from the novels of Anne Cleaves, The Kitchen Child, adapted from Angela Carter’s short story, Frozen and 15 Minutes to Change the World all for BBC Radio 4. He is also the author of The Treasure of Puymule for Catherine Bailey Productions.

Iain was a co-writer of the Gaelic-language film Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle, which was produced by Chris Young at Young Films and is the author of three Gaelic-language novels, The Klondykers, Am Bounty and Empire all of which are published by Gaelic Books Council.

Original music by James Iremonger www.jamesiremonger.co.uk

Produced and engineered by Cian O Siochain

TravCast is the Writer's Podcast from the Traverse, Scotland’s New Writing Theatre. Associate Director, Hamish Pirie, interviews well known playwrights whose work features in the year round programme at the Traverse.

In this episode, Hamish Speaks to Sabrina Mahfouz. SABRINA MAHFOUZ began training as a civil servant after a Masters in International diplomacy but she then turned to writing poetry and prose and her first piece for theatre, That Boy, was performed at the Soho Theatre in 2010 and won a Westminster Prize for New Playwrights.

Since then, she has won a UK Young Artists Award 2011 for poetry; an IdeasTap Innovator Award for theatre and one for poetry and she won a place on the Old Vic's TS Eliot Exchange 2011 to New York. She is currently Creative in Residence for Theatre & Poetry at The Hospital Club and will be the 2012 Leverhulme Trust Associate Playwright at the Bush Theatre. Her recent solo show about a young stripper, Dry Ice, won widespread critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe 2011 and was nominated for The Stage Award for Best Solo Performance. In 2012 Sabrina was nominated as World Economic Forum Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum.

Sabrina has been part of the writers programs at The Royal Opera House and The Royal Court and a playwright on attachment with Tamasha.

Original music by James Iremonger www.jamesiremonger.co.uk

Produced and engineered by Cian O Siochain

TravCast is the Writer's Podcast from the Traverse, Scotland’s New Writing Theatre. Associate Director, Hamish Pirie, interviews well known playwrights whose work features in the year round programme at the Traverse.

In this episode, Hamish Speaks to Lesley Hart. Lesley won Playwright Studio Scotland's New Playwright Award in 2011, and went on to write 3 Seconds through the PSS mentoring scheme. Her first play for radio, Personal Best, was broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland in June 2010. In 2009 she wrote MIX and Second Life, two short plays for the Traverse Theatre which received performed readings as part of the ‘Wildfire’ series. Lesley's play writing has its roots in the Traverse Young Writers group, to which she belonged 2001-2002.

As a feature writer, Lesley has produced hundreds of articles for publications including 4 Talent, the Channel 4 website, Product Magazine and brochures for National Theatre of Scotland. Between 2003 and 2011 Lesley also wrote a weekly op-ed column in the Press & Journal newspaper.

As an actress, Lesley has worked extensively in theatre, film, television, and radio drama.

Original music by James Iremonger www.jamesiremonger.co.uk

Produced and engineered by Cian O Siochain

TravCast is the Writer's Podcast from the Traverse, Scotland’s New Writing Theatre. Associate Director, Hamish Pirie, interviews well known playwrights whose work features in the year round programme at the Traverse.

In this episode, Hamish Speaks to Douglas Maxwell. Douglas has been one of the most popular and produced playwrights in Scotland for over a decade.

His work in the last few years has included Promises Promises (which transferred to New York under the title The Promise in 2011, where it earned a Drama Desk Award Nomination for the actress Joanna Tope); a 10th Anniversary revival of the award winning Decky Does a Bronco; a version of Wedekind's Spring Awakening; The Miracle Man for the NTS, and Small Town, written with DC Jackson and Johnny McKnight.

He has written two musicals: Watertight, with music by Richard Taylor and The Bookie with music by Aly Macrae.

His work for young people includes Too Fast (which was performed by 25 Youth theatres as part of the NT New Connections Festival 2011), Prom, Mancub, Helmet and The Mother Ship (which won the Brian Way Award for Best Play For Young People in 2009). A collection of his work for young people has just been published by Oberon Books.

His plays have been performed in translation in Germany, Norway, Hong Kong, New York, Chicago, Holland, Sweden, South Korea and Japan.

In 2012 a large-scale Japanese version of Our Bad Magnet produced by Watanabe Entertainment and the D-Boys Stage Company played in Tokyo and Osaka; and the Millennium Centre in Cardiff toured a Welsh-language version of Decky Does a Bronco.

Douglas Maxwell currently lives in Glasgow with his wife and his two daughters.

Original music by James Iremonger www.jamesiremonger.co.uk

Produced and engineered by Cian O Siochain

TravCast is the Writer's Podcast from the Traverse, Scotland’s New Writing Theatre. Associate Director, Hamish Pirie, interviews well known playwrights whose work features in the year round programme at the Traverse.

In this episode, Hamish Speaks to John Nicholson and Steven Canny who have co-authored The Arthur Conan Doyle Appreciation Society which features in The Traverse Theatre's autumn programme. This episode also features interviews with director Orla O'Loughlin and performer Javier Marzan. It also features an extract of the performance in rehearsal starring John, Javier and Gabriel Quiqley.

Steven Canny (co-writer)

Steven is a four-time Sony Gold winning Writer, Executive Producer and Director. As writer and adaptor work includes: No Wise Men (Liverpool Playhouse); Origins (Pleasance and Theatre Severn); Foot/Mouth (Soho Theatre);Spyski (Lyric Hammersmith & National Tour); The Hound of the Baskervilles (West Yorkshire Playhouse, national tour, Duchess Theatre, West End and 30 international productions); A Dulditch Angel (national tour); A Shropshire Lad (R4 adaptation & Cottesloe); Mnemonic (R3 adaptation for Complicite); The Virtuous Burglar by Dario Fo (World Service). Directing for stage and radio includes: Rik Mayall’s Bedside Tales; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (with Simon Russell Beale); Brian Gulliver’s Travels by Bill Dare; Beautiful Dreamers by James Lever and Nat Segnit;Hum by Laura Wade; People Snogging in Public Places by Jack Thorne; Donation by Sean Buckley; Burglar Bewareby Matthew Broughton (Union Chapel); Eleven Lessons For The Paranoid (BAC); The Observed (BAC). As Executive Producer credits include: Just a Minute, Now Show, News Quiz and I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue. Work as Associate Director and Dramaturg with Complicite includes: Measure for Measure; The Elephant Vanishes; Mnemonic; The Noise of Time; Light; Genoa 01. Steven was Associate Director of Al Pacino’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.

John Nicholson (co-writer, performer)

John works as a writer, director and performer. He is an artistic director of Peepolykus with whom he has toured worldwide since 1995 in 10 productions including The Midsummer Rude Mechanicals (National Theatre). Performing credits include: No Wise Men (Liverpool Playhouse); The 13 Midnight Challenges of Angelus Diablo (Royal Shakespeare Company); Spyski, Jekyll and Hyde (Lyric Hammersmith); The Hound of the Baskervilles (West Yorkshire Playhouse and West End); The Wrong Door, The Bearded Ladies, P.S Sketch Show (BBC Comedy); Brian Gulliver’s Travels, Marley was Dead, Baskervilles (BBC Radio 4). Writing credits include: The Hound of the Baskervilles (West End and numerous licensed overseas productions); Rik Mayall’s Bedside Tales, Marley was Dead, Baskervilles (BBC Radio 4); Richard’s Rampage (Kevin Spacey Foundation) and Origins (Pentabus). Recent directing includes: Force 9 (NYMT winner of MTM award); The First Thing That Ever Happened (Lyric Hammersmith); Advice on Watson and Oliver (BBC2); Sick Room (National Youth Theatre); Nina Conti - Dolly Mixtures and Mike Mcshane in Mon Droit (Edinburgh Festival and Touring), Paul Merton - Out Of His Head (West End).

Orla O’Loughlin (Director)

Orla is Artistic Director of the Traverse Theatre. Prior to taking up post at the Traverse, she was Artistic Director of the award-winning Pentabus Theatre and International Associate at the Royal Court Theatre. Directing work for the Traverse includes the Herald Angel award winning Dream Plays (Scenes from a play I’ll Never Write) and The Artist man and the Mother Woman by Morna Pearson.

Other directing work includes: For Once (Hampstead Theatre Studio, National Tour); Kebab (Dublin International Festival/ Royal Court Theatre); How Much is your Iron? (Young Vic); The Hound of the Baskervilles (West Yorkshire Playhouse/ National Tour/ West End); Tales of the Country, Origins (Pleasance/ Theatre Severn);Relatively Speaking, Blithe Spirit, Black Comedy (Watermill Theatre); Small Talk: Big Picture (BBC World Service/ ICA/ Royal Court Theatre); A Dulditch Angel (National Tour) and The Fire Raisers, sob stories, Refrain (BAC). Orla has also directed two large-scale, site-specific productions: Shuffle with the National Youth Theatre at Merry Hill, one of Europe's largest shopping centres and Underland, performed 200 feet below ground at Clearwell Caves in the Forest of Dean. Orla was winner of the James Menzies Kitchin Directors Award and recipient of the Carlton Bursary at the Donmar Warehouse.

Javier Marzan (performer)

Javier is a co-artistic director or Peepolykus. Work for Peepolykus includes: The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Spyski(co-produced with West Yorkshire Playhouse) Mindbender, Rhinocerous, Goose Nights. And The Horse You Rode On(The Barbican); Royal Jelly (David Pugh Productions); No Wise Men (Liverpool Playhouse); The Critc (Minerva Theatre); Jack And The Beanstalk, Cinderella, A Christmas Carol (Lyric Hammersmith); A Streetcar Named Desire(Nuffield, Southampton); Beauty And The Beast (Told By An Idiot/Hammersmith Lyric Theatre). Television includes:Mongrels (BBC 3); Clone (Roughcut TV); Extr@ (Channel 4). Film work includes: The History Play: Maggie Heart Galtieri, Hound Of The Baskervilles (BBC Radio 4); Beautiful Dreamers, Cabin Pressure, Marley Was Dead (BBC 4)

Gabriel Quigley (Jennifer)

Gabriel studied English Literature & Theatre Studies at the University of Glasgow. Theatre work for the Traverse includes: Gordon Brown: A Life in Theatre, 15 Secs and Chic Nerds. Other theatre work includes: Enquirer, Rupture (National Theatre of Scotland); Get Santa (Royal Court Theatre); Macbeth, The Demon Barber (Babel);Strawberries in January (Paines Plough, awarded a Herald Angel for her performance); The City, Bliss/ Mud, San Diego, Love Freaks (Tron Theatre); White Tea (Fire Exit); Six Black Candles (Royal Lyceum Edinburgh); Top Girls(New Vic); Burning Bright (V.amp Productions); Mainstream (Suspect Culture); Dissent (7:84);Trainspotting (G & J Productions); The Gun (Wildcat); Grimm Tales (Leicester Haymarket) and in many productions for Òran Mór’s A Play, a Pie and a Pint. TV work includes: New Town, Rab C Nesbitt, Gary Tank Commander, Welcome to Strathmuir, Chewin the Fat, The Karen Dunbar Show, Glasgow Kiss, Haywire, Only an Excuse, Millport, Life Support, Bumping the Odds (BBC); Taggart, Instant Credit (ITV). Film work includes: Festival (Pirate Productions); Psykotika, The Three Musketeers (Ink Animation); Mandancin (1A Productions). Gabriel has worked extensively for BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Radio 5 Live.

Original music by James Iremonger www.jamesiremonger.co.uk

Produced and engineered by Cian O Siochain

TravCast is the Writer's Podcast from the Traverse, Scotland’s New Writing Theatre. Associate Director, Hamish Pirie, interviews well known playwrights whose work features in the year round programme at the Traverse.

In this episode, Hamish Speaks to Morna Pearson. Morna is from Elgin and currently lives in Edinburgh. Her first full professional production was Distracted at the Traverse Theatre in 2006, which won the Meyer-Whitworth Award 2007 and was

nominated for a CATS Award. Morna was given the inaugural Rod Hall Memorial Award in 2006. Her other plays include: Elf Analysis (Òran Mór); The Company Will Overlook a Moment of Madness (National Theatre of Scotland and Òran Mór); Skin; or How To Disappear (Agent 160) and Ailie & The Alien (National Theatre Connections, 2013).

Radio work includes: McBeth’s McPets (BBC Radio Scotland); Side Effects

(BBC Radio 3/Bona Broadcasting).

This episode also features interviews with:

(In order of appearance)

Garry Collins (Geoffrey Buncher)

Anne Lacey (Edie Buncher)

Orla O’Loughlin (Director)

Original music by James Iremonger www.jamesiremonger.co.uk

Produced and engineered by Cian O Siochain

TravCast is the Writer's Podcast from the Traverse, Scotland’s New Writing Theatre. Associate Director, Hamish Pirie, interviews well known playwrights whose work features in the year round programme at the Traverse.

In this episode, Hamish Speaks to Pamela Carter. Pamela is a playwright, director and dramaturg. Pamela’s most recent plays are: Skåne (directed by Tim Carroll at the Hampstead Theatre Downstairs in October 2011; selected for Berliner Festspiele Stückemarkt 2012); Wildlife (produced and toured in Scotland by Magnetic North Theatre Company in Spring 2011); What We Know (directed by Pamela for ek in a co-production with Traverse Theatre in February); and An Argument About Sex after Marivaux’s La Dispute (a co-commission for the Traverse Theatre, Tramway and Untitled Projects and premiered in October 2009 directed by Stewart Laing).

In 2011 she was commissioned by the RCS/Playwrights’ Studio Scotland to write a short play in conjunction with the RCS Masters Degree in Directing and Acting 2010/11. She has turned this into a full-length play, titled Liberty Equality Fraternity, about utopianism, swinging, and socialism. Other plays include: Slope (Untitled/Tramway; July 2006); The Last of Us (Oran Mor; May 2008). She was writer on attachment at the National Theatre Studio in 2008. She has also had writing attachments with the National Theatre of Scotland and Soho Theatre and was a member the Royal Court Writers’ Supergroup 2010.

As the founder and Director of ek, she has co-written and directed Game Theory (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2007; Meyer-Whitworth Award nomination 2008); devised and directed Soul Pilots, a Dark/Lights Commission for Tramway (February 2004); directed Habitats by French playwright Philippe Minyana as a co-production with the Tron Theatre (November 2004); and devised and directed Plain Speaking, a Tramway Surge Commission (work-in-progress, November 2005).

Original music by James Iremonger www.jamesiremonger.co.uk

Produced and engineered by Cian O Siochain

NB Please note, this episode contains very strong language and is not suitable for children.

TravCast is the Writer's Podcast from the Traverse, Scotland’s New Writing Theatre. Associate Director, Hamish Pirie, interviews well known playwrights whose work features in the year round programme at the Traverse.

In this episode, Hamish Speaks to Mark Thomas. Mark is a writer, performer, journalist and political campaigner who has been on stage, screen and radio for 27 years, when he started on London’s alternative comedy scene. He is the author of several books and his TV series, The Mark Thomas Comedy Product ran for six series. His radio show the Manifesto is on-going. His most recent live shows are Extreme Rambling and Bravo Figaro!, which will have a run at the Tricycle Theatre London before touring nationally. The show won both a Fringe First and a Herald Angel award during its run at the Traverse in Edinburgh.

Original music by James Iremonger www.jamesiremonger.co.uk

Produced and engineered by Cian O Siochain