Iain McClure – CV

  •       I am a writer, artist, and a child psychiatrist (website: http://iainmcclure.com)
  •       I have worked creatively all my life, developing my writing in collaboration with other theatre practitioners, in Scotland, England, France (with Theatre du Soleil (https://www.theatre-du-soleil.fr/en/)) and Norway (with Figurteateret (https://figurteateret.no)).
  •       I am also a student at Leith School of Art (painting and printing).

PLAYWRIGHTING

I have written several full-length plays, for stage and radio. Recurring themes in my playwriting are:

  • Children seeking the truth amid family secrets
  • Childhood trauma
  • Lost or dysfunctional parents
  • Female resistance to male invasion
  • The painter and his Muse
  • The artist as pioneer (mainly painters)
  • Autism and mental illness
  • Psychiatry
  • A recurring form of my playwriting is intense psychodrama (Buchner’s Woyzeck is my key dramatic touchstone) but, in my       new play, The Garden of Love, I have developed a larger stage vision. In chronological order, my plays include:
  • Athens, 1989, full length stage play. It is raining heavily outside. A young man opens the door to a young woman. She asks to come in – she has no coat, no shoes. As they unravel their life stories, we find out they are brother and sister, trapped in a terrible ritual. Newcastle University Theatre Society, one week run production, Gulbenkian Studio, Newcastle Upon Tyne.
  • Paint Her Well, 1996, a 90 minute BBC Radio 4 Monday play. A fantastical drama set in a fictitious mountain kingdom, where two paintings hang side by side in the Royal Gallery. One is a marriage portrait of the Queen and the other is of an unknown woman, painted decades earlier. Mysteriously, magically, they seem identical. As The Court Painter explains why, we journey into a complex world of intrigue, betrayal and violent redemption. Starring David Tennant and Liam Brennan, produced by Patrick Rayner (link to listen: http://www.davidtennantontwitter.com/2010/Audio/PaintHerWell.html)
  • The Madman, 2006. Full length stage play. A girl turns 16 and wants to leave home. Her father resists the idea. Some years later, walking by a dark lake, the father meets an actress who has fled from a personal crisis. As their relationship develops, the actress makes a terrible discovery as to why the daughter never left. Developed in a Traverse Theatre workshop, with Lewis Howden and Pauline Kelly, directed by Lorne Campbell.
  • Children of the Mist, 1st February, 2007. Full length stage play. 1746, Culloden, Scotland. Two teenage brothers (one with autism) and their female cousin are orphaned after the battle. In their efforts to survive, they discover unsuspected resilience and a fantastical inheritance. Public rehearsed reading, in outcome of my Playwright’s Studio Scotland mentorship (2005), directed by Nicola McCartney, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, featuring Melody Grove (Farinelli & the King).
  • A Woman in Berlin, July 2009. 40 Minute stage play. A dramatic adaptation of the diary of the same title, written during April to June, 1945 as the million-strong Russian Red Army invaded and occupied Berlin. The author, Marta Hillers, a 34 year-old journalist, suffered deprivation and rape at the hands of the invaders. The true story of her remarkable bravery and will to survive. Both a monologue and soundscape, this is the only dramatic adaptation of this harrowing yet transcendent work for the stage. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Woman_in_Berlin). With Molly Taylor, directed by Deborah Neville (New Works, New Worlds, Arches Theatre; Highly commended by a Scottish Arts Council reviewer).
  • ChildMinder, 2013-23. Full length stage play. Reached the top 20 of the 2015 Bruntwood playwriting competition (out of almost 2,000 entrants). Judging my play, feedback from the core artistic staff at the Royal Exchange Theatre included:
    ‘Throughout the reading process, this piece of writing has been held up as an example of an original and striking voice. Each reader has seen something really exciting in you as a writer. Overall this is a strong piece by a writer with real talent, ambition and vision’. Creative Scotland Open Project funding (£56,000) awarded in December 2022, for its world premiere production, at Traverse Theatre in June 2023, starring Cal MacAninch (https://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/client/cal-macaninch) followed by a short tour to Beacon Arts, Greenock and The Byre Theatre, St. Andrews. Creative team: Kol Sigfúsdóttir, director (http://www.kolbrunbjort.com/cv.html) Michelle McKay, producer (https://www.michellemckay.co.uk).
  • L’Espace du Vrai Amour, about the painter, Edvard Munch. Developed in collaboration with actors from Theatre du Soleil, in Edinburgh, Paris and Stamsund. Funded by Creative Scotland Open Project and Figurteateret (https://figurteateret.no). Some of its scenes directed by Kol Sigfúsdóttir for Manipulate Festival, 2019. Watch the first scene of this play, of Munch being admitted into a Copenhagen psychiatric hospital in 1908: https://mega.nz/file/eMITDDwS#Pw7c4t3jIiVqaaEOg29uziZyUngzt6N2covtMSMWq8E ; Filmmaker Seth Hardwick (National Theatre of Scotland) (https://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com/profile/seth-hardwick-1) Director, Laila Noble; With Dyfan Dwfor, Erin Elkin, others
  • The Garden of Love 2021-22. Full length stage play. Dramaturg / director (over four drafts) Sir Michael Boyd (ex-artistic director, RSC) (https://www.casarotto.co.uk/clients/michael-boyd)

OTHER WRITING

TV / Film

I am co-writing a film drama with Al Smith (https://www.unitedagents.co.uk/al-smith)

Poetry

Mainly for my personal development as a writer. It is where I work out some of my ideas.

SHORT PLAYS, PUBLICLY PERFORMED, WITH PROFESSIONAL INPUT

  •       Tulla – scenes from L’Espace du Vrai Amour in Snapshots: Artists@Work slot at the 2019 Manipulate Festival at the Traverse, Edinburgh, directed by Kol Sigfúsdóttir.
  •       Munch’s Voice, 2017, Full script, public showcase, Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh, with Gerry Mulgrew, directed by Vincent Mangado.
  •       Munch’s Voice, 2015, Scenes from the play, public showcase, Summerhall, directed by Vincent Mangado.
  •       The Beltane Reunion, 2012, with John Kazak, directed by Jenna Watt; Words, Words, Words, Traverse Theatre.
  •       The Beltane Reunion, 2010, with Lewis Howden, directed by Rosie Kellagher; Arches Scratch, Edinburgh Fringe.
  •         A Woman in Berlin, 2008, with Nicola Campbell, directed by Iain McClure; New Works festival, Gilmorehill Theatre, Glasgow.

DEVELOPMENT, PROFESSIONAL

  •       Tulla, 2018 (September, 3 days) Changing House, Tron Theatre, with Vivien Reid, Joe Johnson, Rose Oke Millett, Josh Whitelaw and George Docherty, directed by Kol Sigfúsdóttir.
  •       ChildMinder, 2018 (June, 3 days) Changing House, Tron Theatre, with Brian Ferguson, Kirsty Eila McIntyre and Euan Brockie, directed by Kol Sigfúsdóttir
  •       Munch’s Voice, 2016, (7 days) with Gerry Mulgrew, Rebecca Burton, Hazel Ann Crawford, directed by Vincent Mangado.
  •       The Madman, 2006, (1 day) Traverse Theatre, with Lewis Howden, Pauline Kelly, directed by Lorne Campbell.
  •       Children of the Mist, 2006, (1 day) with Lewis Howden, Pauline Knowles and RSAMD students, directed by Nicola McCartney.

DRAMATURGY, PROFESSIONAL

  •       The Garden of Love, with Michael Boyd, four drafts 2020-22; Kol Sigfúsdóttir and Luke Holbrook (1 draft).            
  •       L’Espace du Vrai Amour, with Michael Boyd 2022.
  •       Tulla, (previously entitled Munch’s Voice) 2018 (to date) with Michael Boyd; 2017 (to date), with Kol Sigfúsdóttir; 2017, Penny Skinner & Amy Rosenthal (Arvon Course); 2015, with Nicola McCartney.
  •       ChildMinder, 2016 (to date) with Michael Boyd; 2017 (to date) with Kol Sigfúsdóttir; 2017-21, with Luke Holbrook 2021.
  •       The Beltane Reunion, 2009, with Rosie Kellagher.
  •       The Madman, 2006-07, Katherine Mendelssohn, Traverse Theatre.
  •       Children of the Mist, 2005-06, Nicola McCartney; Playwrights’ Studio Scotland Mentoring scheme.

COMPLETE PLAY, STUDENT PRODUCTION

  •         Athens, 1989, Newcastle University Theatre Society production, Gulbenkian Studio Theatre.

UNPRODUCED, COMPLETE PLAYS

STAGE:

  •         Revolution, 2017. It imagines the ancient past, the present and the not too distant future, from the perspective of the same man, living in the same place, in the west of Scotland…and three women and a boy. It had a reading with Gerry Mulgrew and Alison Peebles in 2017.
  •       The Furious Czar, 1987. About Peter the Great, living incognito in London, learning how to be a shipwright and having an affair with Betty Sands, the famous orange seller.

RADIO:

  •         The Last Truffle 1999. A rural community is torn apart by its religious fanaticism in 16-th century France.
  •         Dear, 2001. A rich woman is increasingly dementing in a posh hotel in rural west coast Scotland.

OTHER THEATRE EXPERIENCE

  •         Mentorship, 2005, Playwrights’ Studio Scotland, mentor – Nicola McCartney, I wrote Children of the Mist during this formative opportunity.
  •         I directed and acted in a production of Twelfth Night, which was a finalist in the 1988 Sunday Times Drama Festival in Cambridge.
  •         As a student, first at Cambridge and then Newcastle, I directed Eastward Ho!, Much Ado About Nothing, The Provok’d Wife, MacDuff (a then new play by Jean Binnie) and Twelfth Night.
  •       I acted in student productions of The Tempest, Bingo, Pericles, Brassneck, The Crucible and Twelfth Night.

RESIDENCIES

  •         2006 awarded a week-long writing residency at Cove Park, Argyll.