Audience members can move around freely, leave and enter the auditorium as needed, the lights will stay on low and sound effects are softened. A childhood growing up in 1980's Scotland (Not Britain) where Maggie Thatcher's `reign' is about to bring the demise of the town of Motherwell. I tell stories to help people better understand themselves and others, to ask better questions not provide easy answers. All through the book I felt fear, anger and contempt for the characters knowing that they still exist and are still holding back youngsters quarter of a century later. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

In 2023, I moved to Canongate Books on a two-book deal and that feels like a very special sort of homecoming. Some of the area has improved, with new people moving into new housing developments due to the excellent transport links in the area. Without a shred of self pity, Damian Barr tells the story of his appalling childhood in a Housing estate near Glasgow and how it (and Maggie Thatcher) shaped his life. This memoir takes us through his life growing up in a Scottish housing scheme in the midst of Thatcherism, in a broken home and trying to be everything but himself. The thing that's stayed with us through the development process is Maggie Thatcher being an unlikely imaginary friend and Thatcherism being an unlikely tool for Damian to get through this childhood.Previously Creative Director at the Liverpool Everyman; and Artistic Director/CEO of the internationally acclaimed new writing company HighTide; Suba trained at Cambridge and on the prestigious Birkbeck MFA in Theatre Directing. Both series will be developed by STV’s Claire Armspach and Sarah Brown, with Sarah as Executive Producer. A joyous Scottish festival which captivated Highland music fans 30 years ago is being lovingly rebooted thanks to renowned musician, broadcaster, and event organiser Gary Innes!

It captures poverty, the era, attitudes and the darkest aspects of Scottish life as the mines closed.His directing credits include major revivals of Top Girls (Liverpool Everyman), East Is East (Northern Stage and Nottingham Playhouse) and The Importance of Being Earnest (Bolton Octagon); in addition to the world premieres of Ravi Shankar’s Sukanya (with The Royal Opera and London Philharmonic Orchestra), Pink Sari Revolution by Purva Naresh, and Wipers by Ishy Din (all as Associate Director at Leicester Curve). I found Maggie and Me, by Damian Barr, to be one of those moving books that you just know is going to make an important statement. Inspired by real events, it’s a novel of connected parts which uncovers a hidden colonial history and present-day darkness while exploring our capacity for cruelty and kindness. Maggie and Me told the story of Damian Barr growing up gay, in a tough world - in Scotland and under Margaret Thatcher's heavy-handed political rule.

I was asking a lot of these questions while I was doing a PhD at the time, but it was only when I went to see the NTS play Lament For Lament for Sheku Bayoh that I thought ‘this is the place to ask those questions’. You Will Be Safe Here was a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime and Book of the Year in thr Guardian, Observer and Times.It was wonderful how the author engaged readers by revealing heartbreaking accounts, balanced with humour and wit. Sarah said: “As soon as we read Kirstin’s sensational debut novel, we knew it was the perfect material for television. A memoir about growing up in working class Scotland in the 1980s, this book reminded me of Kerry Hudson's work, but is of course its own story too. My Mum had an old Golden Virginia Tobacco tin filled with words written in block capitals on tiny squares of paper. Damian’s experiences skip from the sad to the joyful, the funny, the silly, the universality of being a kid.

We are incredibly excited to be working once again with some of the best creative talent in Scotland and bringing both of these fantastic books to the screen. I'd spend days of reading willing him to escape the poverty, bullying, alcoholism, violence, unreliable parenting, and general difficulties of being a gay boy growing up in a poor part of Scotland. Audio Description provides a live commentary (through a headset) of the action on stage, interspersed with the actors’ dialogue. Obviously, any memoir /autobiography set in the 80s and 90s is going to be compelling for those of us who were also young In those decades.The million copy bestseller, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, is an immensely powerful and heartbreaking novel of brotherly love and.