If You Read One Thing…
A new lockdown theatre project was just what River City creator Stephen Greenhorn needed to break his writer’s block
Make sure it’s the exclusive interview with playwright Stephen Greenhorn, on his lockdown comeback
“I took physics at university and quickly realised I’d mistake” made a
THE works of playwright and screenwriter Stephen Greenhorn have a place in the hearts of most Scots. The West Lothian-born creator of River City and writer of Sunshine on Leith has received critical acclaim for his work on both stage and screen, but he admits that until recently he’s suffered from a bad case of writer’s block.
“I hadn’t written much for the theatre since the revival of Sunshine on Leith in Leeds in 2018,” Stephen said. “Pitlochry Festival Theatre approached me this year to write something new and I said that to them. I hadn’t dipped my toe back into theatre writing for years, I had a real problem.”
During lockdown, the theatre directors at Pitlochry decided to run a new creative initiative, Shades of Tay, inspired by the river and released online to entertain lockdown audiences. They approached the biggest names in Scottish theatre to write short pieces for the project, and top of that list was Stephen Greenhorn.
“Pitlochry are hugely dependent on box office,” Stephen says. “If they can’t open the theatre, they’re financially very exposed. The idea that I might challenge myself to do a short piece connected to the theatre appealed to me. It seemed a good way to get back into that world, flex that writing muscle again – and for a good cause. Now I just need to write it!”
With such a glittering career tucked under his belt, it’s hard to believe that Stephen has trouble writing – or that this career is something that he fell into.
“I took physics at university and quickly realised I’d made a mistake. I went back later and took a broadbased degree course, part of which was a theatre studies class. We got to try a little bit of acting and a bit of directing and I was terrible at both of them.
“You had to do a project at the end and I decided the only thing I could do was try and write something, so I embarked on my first play.”
That play was Heart and Bone. After being read at both the Traverse and the Lyceum Theatre, it was picked up for the Fringe, going on to win a First at the festival. The prestigious award attracted commissions, and when Stephen graduated the following year, he already had radio and theatre work lined up.
“I really had no clear career plan. I decided to complete the commissions and see what happened. This is where I’ve ended up!”
In 1997, Stephen was commissioned by the Traverse Theatre to write Passing Places, which had a revival at the Dundee Rep and the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow in 2018. The Scottish road movie for the stage sees its protagonists Alex and Brian, flee Motherwell in a clapped-out Lada and head North.
“Passing Places was inspired by my student days and that period I had between degrees. I was drifting between jobs and trying to figure out what to do.
“Me and my friends would pool our dole money to buy petrol and drive up north to go hill walking. I found it really interesting that every time we went there, we felt really out of place. It bore no relation to the Scotland that we came from.”
The darkly funny play captivated audiences, leading to
sell-out performances at the Traverse. The play was then taken to Finland and Germany and was adapted as a radio play for the BBC.
Becoming involved with the BBC opened up new projects for Stephen.
He created the soap River City in 2002, and adapted Wide Sargasso Sea for television in 2006 before writing two episodes of Doctor Who for the channel.
“I used to watch Doctor Who when I was a kid, like everyone did. When it came back I was so taken by what Russell T. Davies had done with it. At the time I’d been working on a couple of big serious projects and I really wanted to go and just write an episode of something. It was such an exciting show to work for.”
In 2007, Stephen returned to the theatre with a commission from the Dundee Rep to write something slightly different.
“I loved the idea of writing a musical. The best bits in plays are always those moments when the audience really connects with the performance, but in a good musical, that happens every five minutes. At the end of every great song you want to leap to your feet and scream and shout.
“I thought, if I could tell a Scottish story, if I could write the sort of thing that I normally write but harness it to the power of songs, that would be amazing.”
“The audiences” darkly funny play captivated
Stephen worked on the project with James Brining, who was the artistic director at the Dundee Rep at the time. He suggested Stephen use existing songs that were linked in some way or were written by the same artist.
“We looked at all these options, but we couldn’t find anything quite right. Then, one night I got drunk and listened to This is the Story by The Proclaimers, an album that I love. It’s a strange collection, they’re not all love tracks, there are angry political songs and songs about
hitch-hiking on there! And, the romantic ones aren’t all straightforward honeymoon tracks either, they’re about the complexity of relationships.”
Listening to all of The Proclaimers’ albums back to back on his 400-mile round trip from his then home in London, to his base in Glasgow, Stephen began to form the idea for Sunshine on Leith.
The play went on to be a huge success touring across the UK and winning a TMA for Best Musical of the year in 2007.
But, that wasn’t the end of the Scottish musical’s story, not by a long shot. In 2014, it was turned into a movie starring Peter Mullan and Jane Horrocks, winning the hearts of both the public and critics alike.
“I’d never written a screenplay before, so that was a challenge, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’d written this big dance number for the climax of the film, which was filmed at the Mound and the area wasn’t closed off!
“If you watch the scene closely, you can spot members of the public just wandering through with their shopping. Some of them even joined in with the dancing!”
Now, as well as returning to the world of theatre for the Pitlochry Festival Theatre production, Stephen is back working on a number of television scripts, including an episode of a new series, Around The World In 80 Days, based on the 1872 epic adventure novel by Jules Verne.
“This has been one of the most fun projects I’ve done. The timing of it was disastrous, though – we were right in the middle of production when lockdown struck.
“We’ve had to hit pause on it for now. The whole industry has been hit, and we don’t know what it’s going to look like when we go back. You have to think about the actors social distancing on set.