Full Cast and Creative Team Set For National Theatre Of Scotland's MAGGIE & ME

The full cast and creatives have been announced for the tour of Maggie & Me, the first stage adaptation of Damian Barr's award-winning memoir touring UK in May and June 2024.

Gary Lamont as DB leads an ensemble cast with Sam Angell as Wee DB and Beth Marshall as Margaret Thatcher.

Maggie & Me is written by Damian Barr and James Ley, adapted from the memoir by Damian Barr, and directed by Suba Das.

Opening at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow (sold out), and touring to Eden Court, Inverness; Perth Theatre; Lanternhouse, Cumbernauld; Dundee Rep Theatre; Royal & Derngate, Northampton and Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh. 

Maggie & Me, Damian Barr's award-winning and darkly witty memoir about growing up gay in Thatcher's Britain is coming to stages across the UK, in a bold and explosive new production led by a queer creative team.    

Damian Barr is adapting his memoir for the stage, teaming up with Scottish playwright James Ley and directed by Suba Das.   

This new production from National Theatre of Scotland premieres at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow in May 2024 before touring to Inverness, Perth, Cumbernauld, Dundee, Northampton and Edinburgh.  

Brighton, 2008: Damian Barr celebrates getting a deal to write a memoir about his chaotic childhood in 1980s Lanarkshire. But as soon as he opens the door to his troubled past, everybody comes rushing through, including his younger self and the woman who forever changes his family, community and country: Maggie Thatcher.   

Soon, revisiting his past turns into reliving it – the fear and the joy. From the furnaces of the Ravenscraig Steelworks to the sanctuary of Carfin Grotto, there's trauma and triumph, coming of age and coming out. It's about friendship and family, finding your voice and fighting to tell your story. Can Damian survive his past again? 

Past and present collide, endangering the future, in an explosive quest that tells the story of a particular place and time through Damian's childhood. Before you can move forwards, you have to go back… 

In Maggie & Me, Damian will come face to face with his past. DB will be played by Gary Lamont, who will be familiar to Scottish audiences from his role as Robbie Fraser in River City, and most recently seen in Boiling Point, both the Netflix film and BBC television continuation. Wee DB will be played by Sam Angell, who is making his National Theatre of Scotland debut. He started his career playing Billy Elliot in Stephen Daldry's West End production in 2008. 

Beth Marshall will be taking on the titular Maggie Thatcher, who finds herself pulled into Damian's world. Recent stage credits include Fleg, The Spark, and Mary and Ada Set The World to Rights (A Play, a Pie and a Pint) and Mrs Puntilla and his Man Matti (Royal Lyceum Theatre), and television credits include Still Game, Shetland and River City. Last year, Beth worked with National Theatre of Scotland in Hannah Lavery's radio play Finding Seaglass (co-prod with Almost Tangible for BBC Radio 4).  

Both making their National Theatre of Scotland debut, Nicola Jo Cully will be playing Mum, and Douglas Rankine will be playing Dad. Nicola Jo Cully has appeared on screen in Doctors, Outlander, Waterloo Road, River City and Casualty. Stage credits include Welcome to Bannockburn (A Play, a Pie and a Pint) and Prism (Scottish Theatre Producers). Douglas Rankine is returning to Scottish stages for the first time since 2006, where he appeared in Faust (Royal Lyceum Theatre). His film credits include The Death & of John F. Donovan and Sunset Song, and television credits includes The Pigeon Tunnel (Apple TV+), Traces, Casualty, River City, Peaky Blinders and The Dumping Ground (BBC).  

Completing the cast are Grant McIntyre as Mark and Joanne Thomson as Heather. Grant McIntyre's recent stage credits include Scots (A Play, a Pie and a Pint), The Addams Family UK tour and Oor Wullie (Dundee Rep). Joanne Thomson is an actor, writer and director, She was nominated twice for Best Actress categories at the IARA Awards for her role in In Plain Sight (ITV) and will be familiar to audiences from her role in Outlander as Amy McCallum. Stage credits as an actress include The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart (Royal Exchange Manchester), and Twelfth Night (Bristol Old Vic, Royal Lyceum Theatre). 

A creative team including Kenneth MacLeod, Set and Costume Designer (Dracula: Mina's Reckoning for National Theatre of Scotland and Aberdeen Performing Arts, and Battery Park for Sleeping Warrior Theatre); Struan Leslie, Movement Director, (founding Head of Movement at the Royal Shakespeare Company) and Tim Reid, Video Designer (Quiz – Chichester Festival Theatre, 1984 - West End and Broadway and The Grand Old Opera House Hotel – Traverse Theatre) will create a kaleidoscope of memory spanning two decades, weaving in use of iconic 80s archive footage and live onstage camera work. 

Published in 2013, Maggie & Me was named Sunday Times Memoir of the Year, awarded the Paddy Power Political Satire Award and Barr was named Stonewall Writer of the Year.  

There will be a chance for audiences to hear more about bringing the memoir to the stage from Damian at two special events in Edinburgh and Motherwell, and from Damian and co-writer James together in Glasgow. More details about these events will be available soon. 

The National Theatre of Scotland will be collaborating with film and video students from New College Lanarkshire to create a short documentary about the making of the production. 

Maggie & Me was highly acclaimed upon publication and has established itself as a Scottish classic memoir. This is the first time it has been adapted for the stage. 

Born in Bellshill and now living in Brighton, Damian Barr is an award-winning writer and broadcaster. His debut novel, You Will Be Safe Here, was Book of the Year in the Observer, Guardian and Mail in 2019. He has written several plays for radio, with Maggie & Me marking his first stage play. In 2019, Damian brought books back to television with the BBC's Big Scottish Book Club, now in its fifth series. He regularly appears on Radio 4. 

James Ley is an award-winning writer living in Glasgow.  

James wrote and directed Ode to Joy (How Gordon got to go to the nasty pig party), winner of a Scotsman Fringe First in 2022, nominated for a Critics Award for Theatre Scotland Award 2023 for Best New Play and recently enjoyed a run at the Sydney Festival. His other plays include Wilf (Traverse Theatre) and Love Song to Lavender Menace (Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, Summerhall, SoHo Playhouse, New York). James is currently under commission with the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, and is an alumnus of the BBC Writersroom Scottish Voices 2022/2023 and Edinburgh Film Festival Talent Lab. 

Suba Das is an award-winning theatremaker from the Northeast of England. 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. He is a 2023 graduate of the National Film and Television School's Directors Series.  

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). This is his first time working with The National Theatre of Scotland. 

Touring to Tron Theatre, Glasgow Tues 7 to Sat 11 May; One Touch, Eden Court Tues 14 May to Wed 15 May; Perth Theatre Fri 17 May to Sat 18 May; Cumbernauld Theatre Thurs 23 May to Sat 25 May; Dundee Rep Theatre Thurs 30 May to Sat 1 June; Royal & Derngate, Northampton Thurs 6 June to Sat 8 June; Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Tues 11 June to Sat 15 June 

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