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JOHN BYRNE (1940 - ) |
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Nationality: Scottish Email: n/a Website: n/a |
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Literary Agent: Casarotto Ramsay and Associates Ltd |
John Byrne was born in Paisley in 1940. He worked as a slab boy' at A F Stoddard, the carpet manufacturers, before going to Glasgow School of Art. He became a full time painter in 1968 following his first London exhibition. John is also a distinguished theatre designer and playwright. Other plays include The Slab Boys, Cuttin' a Rug, Still Life, Writer's Cramp, Normal Service, Cara Coco and Colquhoun and Macbryde. On television he is best known for his BAFTA Award-winning seriesTutti Frutti (recently adapted for the stage by National Theatre of Scotland). He has also designed for the Traverse Theatre, 7:84, Hampstead Theatre, Bush Theatre and Scottish Opera.
Plays by John Byrne
Babes In The Wood | ||
| 1st Produced: | Glasgow | 1980 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #5618 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Musical | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | by John Byrne; music by John Gould, lyrics by David Dearlove | |||||
Synopsis: |
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Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Candy Kisses | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1984 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #5619 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | wonderful confusion is set in train by the accidental progress of an ancient handgun around the inhabitants of a pensione in Perugia in 1963. | |||||
Further Reference: | National Library of Scotland ref: Traverse - Acc.10577/11 | |||||
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Cara Coco | ||
| 1st Produced: | Irvine, Ayrshire | 1981 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #5620 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | n/a | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: |
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Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Cherry Orchard, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | 17 Apr 2010 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #102385 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Adaptation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 7 | Female | 5 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Anton Chekhov | |||||
Synopsis: | Retains the main plot of the original but relocates the action to Scotland in the 1980s. In the far Northeast, time is almost up for the Ramsay-Mackays - their grand old house and the wonderful cherry orchard that goes with it are all that is left of their once-large fortune - and the vultures are circling. . .Malky McCracken is an up-and-coming young investor, eager to free himself from his working class roots and make his name as a serious businessman. His zealous pursuit of the estate is countered by his fondness for the family themselves, not least adopted daughter Verity. A comic and moving examination of a family, and those who surround it, revealing personal absurdities and tragedies in equal measure. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Colquhoun and McBryde | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1992 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Faber and Faber, London, 1992 | ISBN/ASIN: | 9780571169597 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #5621 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | True Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
| Based on the lives of Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde the painters. Colquhoun bumps into MacBryde at the Glasgow School of Art and they become instant friends and lovers. After graduating they move to London and set up in a bed sit they become friends with many of the "Bohemian" set such as Dylan Thomas. But drink was their problem and they spend a lot of time drinking or drunk. They get their first big exhibition and are feted the artistic circles and the press. It is the Second World War, Colquhoun enlists as an ambulance driver despite the fact he cannot drive. MacBryde is exempt war service on medical grounds. War service proves to be too much for Colquhoun and he is discharged on medical grounds. They spend some time living with a friend in Essex. Returning to their bed-sit they are evicted for non payment of rent. They descend even further into alcoholism. The owner of the gallery that put on their exhibitions dies and the new owner no longer wants to display their work. They have a hand to mouth existence sponging money from friends and living in a succession of grotty bed-sits. | |||||
Further Reference: | National Library of Scotland ref: Traverse - Acc.10365/39 | |||||
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Cuckolds London, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1985 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Samuel French, London, 1986 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #5622 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Adaptation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 9 | Female | 5 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Edward Ravenscroft | |||||
Synopsis: | three beautiful wives, three ludicrous husbands and one overly ambitious, rapacious rake | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Cuttin' a Rug | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1982 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Salamander Press | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #5623 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | n/a | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | see Loveliest Night Of The Year | |||||
Synopsis: | n/a | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Government Inspector, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1997 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Oberon Books | ISBN/ASIN: | 978-1840020298 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #5624 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Adaptation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 12 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Nikolai Gogol | |||||
Synopsis: |
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Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Hooray For Hollywood | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Contact Actors Theatre of Louisville, | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #5625 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Short Play One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 5 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | part of The American Project: a compendium of short plays | |||||
Synopsis: | A writer's first collision with tinsel-town machinery | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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London Cuckolds | ||
| 1st Produced: | Leicester | 1985 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Samuel French, London, 1986 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #5626 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Adaptation | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 9 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Edward Ravenscroft | |||||
Synopsis: | Period 1600 two aldermen with young wives argue about the qualities in a woman that make for a secure marriage before finding themselves cuckolded | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Loveliest Night Of The Year, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1979 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Threads in "A Decade's Drama: Six Scottish Plays, Woodhouse, Todmorden, Lancashire. Cuttin' A Rug, Edinburgh, Salamander Press, 1982, 1980 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #5627 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | part of "The Slab Boys Trilogy" aka Cuttin' a Rug (London, 1982), Threads (London, 1980), broadcast as The Staffie | |||||
Synopsis: | famous study of the lives of a group of Paisley boys working in the 'slab room' of a local carpet factory. Looks more closely at the theme of class tension on one hand and masculinity defined by violence on the other; but he also opens up a sense of beauty and romance, of pure sexual magic, as a redemptive force in the lives he describes. - McMillan, Scotsman. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Normal Service | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1979 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | in "Plays and Players", May, London, 1979 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #5628 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | The everyday non-events of Caledonian Television circa 1963 | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Nova Scotia | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2008 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #79169 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | part four of "The Slab Boys Story" | |||||
Synopsis: | 30 years on from when we last met him and Lucille in The Garden of Remembrance, Phil McCann faces the New Millennium with fortitude and good humour. The leading arts correspondent of the day is on her way to the far north to record a radio profile which Phil's confident will relaunch his career as a painter and establish him once and for all as a colossus of contemporary Caledonian culture. . .The only fly in the ointment is his new and much younger partner, Didi, a video-artist of some renown, who has just been added to the shortlist of nominees for the Turner Prize. Unfortunately, there are other flies buzzing about this particular ointment. . . | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Slab Boys | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1978 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | in 'on the argot', Scottish Society of Playwrights, Glasgow, 1982 | ISBN/ASIN: | 9780140482119 | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #5629 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | part one of "The Slab Boys Trilogy". Originally called Paisley Patterns. | |||||
| from the fifties to the seventies, through Brylcream and Elvis to fluorescent underpants and hash cookies, catches the vibrant idiom of a whole generation. Powerful high farce out of the tension between Phil and Spanky's youthful wit and exuberance, and the dark undercurrent of sheer cruelty in their treatment of the Slab Romm wimp, Hector, and other victims. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Still Life | ||
| 1st Produced: | 1982 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | Salamander Press, Edinburgh, 1982 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #5630 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 4 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | part three of "The Slab Boys Trilogy" | |||||
Synopsis: | famous study of the lives of a group of Paisley boys working in the 'slab room' of a local carpet factory. The hero, Phil Cann, confronts the premature deaths of the trilogy's two great victims, poor Hector and his own mad mother, and evokes a fairly bleak image of youthful hopes aborted, or diverted into an absurd circus of hip 1970's culture, before proposing Phil's redemption through fatherhood and his true marriage to Lucille, always every Slab Boy's dream. - McMillan, Scotsman. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Tutti Frutti | ||
| 1st Produced: | His Majesty's Theatre, Aberdeen | 2006 | ||||
Company: | National Theatre of Scotland | |||||
| 1st Published: | Faber and Faber, London, 2006 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #56003 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Musical Play Musical | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 8 | Female | 5 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Twenty-three years on from their slightly dodgy, single foray into the charts, Scottish pop sensations The Majestics are mourning the loss of Big Jazza - their charismatic frontman - whose Ford Sierra just collided with a bus shelter via an unwelcome late-night kebab. With a Silver Jubilee tour booked, an album to cut and a TV documentary in the offing, can Jazza's brother, Danny, just washed up from New York with only four dollars to his name, save the day? It was 1987 when John Byrne's award-winning comedy-drama burst onto the nation's TV screens, searing itself into a generation's consciousness in the process. Now he has adapted his own original script, as the National Theatre of Scotland and His Majesty's Theatre, Aberdeen, bring Vinnie, Eddie Clockerty, Miss Toner, Suzi Kettles, Bomba et al to the stage for the very first time. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Uncle Varick | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2004 | |||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #43620 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 5 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Original Playwright - Anton Chekhov (Uncle Vanya) | |||||
Synopsis: | How funny is Chekhov? In John Byrne's witty transposition of Uncle Vanya to north-east Scotland in 1964, the laughs come thick and fast. But, although Brian Cox lends his massive presence to the ineffectual, hops-producing Varick, the sheer ingenuity of Byrne's adaptation somewhat diminishes the pain of the original play. Byrne, as we know from Writer's Cramp, has a sharp eye for cultural pseudery. And he has most fun here with the character of Sandy Sheridan - the equivalent of Chekhov's Professor - a metropolitan art pundit who pens patronising pieces claiming "the landscape of Landseer is wasted on the Scots" and who, according to the envious Varick, has all the visual sophistication of Blind Pew. Byrne keeps up an endless supply of 1960s satirical jokes, with Varick's muddled mother poring over a slim volume entitled "The Rise and Fall of the Penis in 20th-Century Art." - Billington, Guardian | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Writer's Cramp | ||
| 1st Produced: | Calton Studios, Edinburgh | 1977 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | in "Plays and Players", December, London, 1977 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #5631 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | takes satirical swipes at Anglo-Scottish cultural pretensions. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Wrong Side of 8th | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #103294 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | n/a | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | n/a | |||||
Further Reference: | National Library of Scotland ref: Traverse - Acc.10365/57 | |||||
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