Arts Diary: Cancellation mystery of final James play and why no-one can get enough of Kenmure Street

Announced just last month to much fanfare, the new amateur Edinburgh-based company was set to be the first group to perform the modern history play in Scotland as its inaugural work.

The National Theatre of Scotland produced the first four James plays by award-winning playwright Rona Munro - James I, James II, James III and James IV - between 2016 and 2022 - while Raw Material and Capital Theatres were behind James V: Katherine 2024. Raw Material also has plans to tour JAMES V1: First and Last, supported by the Creative Scotland Touring Fund - next year.

Mary, however, has never been performed north of the Border, with its premiere - and only run -held at the Hampstead Theatre in London in 2022.

​Interestingly, I hear Union's production has now had to be scrapped.

However, I'm told the company, which was launched out of the wake of long-running theatre company Arkle by drama veterans Phil Barnes, Gregor McElvogue, Hannah Bradley Croall, John Lally and Rob Shields, is about to announce an alternative production (watch this space) which it will run at the same venue, on the same dates in June and even utilising the same cast - suggesting there are no issues with Union's capacity to stage a play.

Is someone else, perhaps a professional company, planning to put it on, causing Union's licence to be withdrawn? NTS, Raw Material and Capital Theatres all insist they have no current plans to produce the play, but, really, what does current mean?

Kenmure Street fever

It is the remarkable real-life story that keeps on giving, artistically, at any rate.

The tale of the Kenmure Street protests, which saw an entire community join together in a bid to stop the Home Office from detaining two men for alleged violations of immigration laws in the Pollockshields area of Glasgow, is to be the focus of a Play, Pie and a Pint show premiering in the city's Oran Mor next week.

Kenmure Street, by Simon Jay, uses interviews, news reports and eyewitness film footage to retell the events of the 2021 raid.

This follows the huge success of Everybody to Kenmure Street, an independent film which featured Emma Thomson and opened this year's Glasgow Film Festival and was shown at the renowned Sundance Festival in the US, where it won a Special Jury Award.

The film, it was revealed today, has made box office history at the Glasgow Film Theatre, where it is still running eight weeks after its release and has become the second highest-grossing new release in the GFT’s 52-year history.

Meanwhile the Citizens Theatre recently announced These Are Our Neighbours, a play "fusing documentary theatre with celebratory dance" to tell the story of the Kenmure Street protests, as part of its new season's line up.

With immigration still a majorly important topic - it was a focus of NTS's Mayday event in Edinburgh last weekend, billed as an artistic "response to the times we are living through" - at least no-one can claim they've never heard of the Kenmure Street legends.

75 years for the "theatre in the hills"

Finally, in what has become a very theatre-heavy diary (I promise a focus on opera, fine art or acid jazz in the coming weeks), anyone keen to learn more about the history of Pitlochry Festival Theatre can snap up the last few tickets for an in-conversation event with its artistic director Alan Cumming and honorary president Colin Liddell to launch Mr Liddell's book on the topic.

The event marks the 75th anniversary of the theatre.