'Shocking and thrilling' stage play of iconic Edinburgh novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie to tour Scotland
The play is part o the National Theatre of Scotland’s 20th year programme launch
It has been named one of Scotland’s favourite books of all time and was immortalised on the screen with iconic actress Dame Maggie Smith in the title role of the Morningside teacher who is “in her prime”.
Now a new stage production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, starring House of the Dragon actor Gayle Rankin, is to tour Scotland as part of the 20th-anniversary season programme announced by the National Theatre of Scotland (NTS).
Jackie Wylie, artistic director and chief executive of NTS, said the programme, unveiled on Thursday, aimed to “be part of the lives of people across Scotland”.
Ms Rankin, who also performed in a production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in Edinburgh as a 12-year-old, appeared on the Netflix series GLOW, as Sheila the She-Wolf, as well as Queen Victoria in hit film The Greatest Showman and Alys Rivers in House of the Dragon.
The production, adapted from Muriel Spark’s novel by David Harrower and directed by Vicky Featherstone, will mark 60 years since the premiere of the original stage version. This is the first time that Harrower’s adaptation has been performed in Scotland, having been originally staged at the Donmar Warehouse in London’s Covent Garden in 2018.
Also launched alongside the new season’s programme is True Story, a nationwide call-out that will see one real-life story put forward by a member of the public transformed into a stage play.
Meanwhile, 45 years on from the legendary occupation by 200 female workers at the Lee Jeans factory in Greenock, the programme will also feature new play Stand and Deliver: The Lee Jeans Sit-In.
The play tells a personal story of political resistance, workers’ determination and lifelong female solidarity and friendship. Written by Frances Poet, who was behind Small Acts of Love, which launched the newly-refurbished Citizens Theatre in Glasgow earlier this year, the play will be performed with a live 1980s soundtrack.
Through the Shortbread Tin, a one-man show by poet Martin O’Connor, questioning his relationship with Scottish culture, is to tour “site-specific” locations in Scotland after a successful tour last season, which Ms Wylie said would “play with” the “heuristic version of Scotland” tackled in the piece.
A stage musical version of hit 1990s TV show The High Life, starring Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson, has already been announced.
Ms Wylie said the version of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which was written in 1961, would be an “exciting dynamic modern production” with “the broadest possible appeal”.
She said: “As a piece of seminal Scottish literature, it's absolutely wonderful to have to be able to bring it to Scottish audiences. You have to think, whenever you revisit classics, why? Why are we doing this now? You have to ask yourself that about any text because for it to resonate with an audience, you have to be able to answer that question.
“There's something fantastic about the presentation of these young girls and the way that they are wrangling with agency and power and mystery. Brodie is a figure who we're all infatuated with. And there's something with these powerful figureheads, and how that relates to dynamics of human beings, and particularly women, that feels really exciting to be telling now.
“Obviously, it has a relationship to the backdrop of conversations around power and the broader political context that it's operating in - she’s a flawed character. There's lots of conversations about the rise of fascism within that text.”
NTS was launched in 2006 as a “theatre without walls”, using existing venues and collaborating with partners to create work.
Director Ms Featherstone, said: “Twenty years after we made our first tentative steps towards what a National Theatre for Scotland could be, I am honoured to be part of this year’s celebrations, with what is undoubtedly one of the most iconic characters and stories ever written.
“It is testament to Spark that this story penned in 1961 Edinburgh feels as sharp, as shocking, as thrilling, as alive as it did on publication and is an incredible opportunity to exalt the exceptional theatre artists and celebrate Scottish audience’s unbridled passion for theatre that gave us the courage to begin all those years ago.”
Ms Wylie said the programme was a “really rich demonstration” of NTS’s “without walls” concept.
She said: “The whole of the 20th-anniversary season is about going out to the people of Scotland, and actually being part of the storytelling of the nation and the experience of what it means to be Scottish and to be in contemporary Scotland. It feels like NTS is uniquely placed to do that across our programme of work.”
Ms Wylie said she expected True Story, which will be launched in the new year, could produce personal tales linked to events in Scotland’s history, or stories about specific members of communities who have made a difference.
She said: “There are parts of our history that are not told as much as they maybe could be. It's the public's opportunity to tell us real-life stories. We'll be calling for people to give us their stories and we will select one of them by a combination of a panel and a public vote, and then we will turn their story into a full-length production.
“It just feels really thrilling. It is part of our desire to be really, truly embedded in the lives of people all across Scotland. This is an opportunity for us to have a conversation with the whole nation about what stories they would like their National Theatre to tell.”
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie previews and opens at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh before touring to The Citizens Theatre, Glasgow; His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen and Pitlochry Festival Theatre.
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