Getting Along with Gran is coming to North Edinburgh Arts!
This brilliant dark comedy from Citadel Arts Group is inspired by real stories and memories from the Royston Wardieburn community. Expect hard-hitting, funny and deeply human performance by a professional cast alongside local community performers and pupils from Granton Primary School.
Tuesday 16 June & Wednesday 17 June at 1.30pm
North Edinburgh Arts, 12C Macmillan Square, EH4 4AB
Getting Along with Gran is Citadel Arts Group’s forthcoming dark comedy developed from stories and memories of older people living in Royston Wardieburn.
The Social History Group who meet at Royston Wardieburn Community Centre asked Citadel’s Playwrights Workshop to work with them. They wanted to create a play inspired by their stories of life in the area from the 1960s to the times of Margaret Thatcher. The Iron Lady makes a brief appearance in the play but definitely not as the heroine! The stories have been collected in a book ‘Windows to Our Past’, edited by tutor Jim Aitken.
The Citadel Playwrights, Elaine Campbell, San Cassimally, Pamela Hanlon, Rhona McAdam, and Richard Peoples held a series of creative meetings with Jim Aitken’s group at Royston Wardieburn CC.
The script emerged from the life stories of Winifred Burke, Pat Gilhooly, Anna Hutchison, Bill and Greta McPhail, Helen McRae, David Norcliffe, Karen Soso, and Cathie Umobi. They were keen for the play to bring their stories to an all-Edinburgh audience.
They told Citadel ‘We want to see our stories travel . . . reach the wider community, especially as this kind of history isn’t taught in schools.’ Jim Aitken assured Citadel, ‘having a play performed that came out of our social history project would be wonderful.’
A performed reading of the play in the community centre back in March showed how much the play appealed to a local audience. Their feedback was music to Citadel’s ears: ‘enjoyable to share these stories from the community – especially of Thatcher . . .interesting period of history, sadly being repeated by the so-called socialist government . . . it brought back lots of memories . . . interesting social history told through a personal story . . . stirred deep emotions. . . . loved the collaboration with school, community actors and everyone.’
This is an am-pro production, and the audience especially enjoyed the involvement of local actors from the Social History Group, and a P4 class from nearby Granton Primary School who held their own beside Citadel’s professional cast.
Davie Norcliffe, a retired janitor, takes the part of the school janitor back in the 1960s when pupils still got the belt for playing up.
The play focuses on Gran (Laverne Edmonds) who can no longer live alone. She has moved in with her daughter’s family, and it is granddaughter Em (Mairi Jayne Weir) who bears the brunt of the reminiscences Gran and her friends (Deborah Whyte and Chelsea Grace) inflict on her. Some memories disturb her and cause nightmares: she gets the belt from a sadistic teacher (Jim Bryce) and is chased by a giant fish and even menaced by Thatcher in a nightmare.
She learns about the highs and lows of Gran’s fascinating life: her romance on Silverknowes Beach and travelling to China with her employees. Her Gran becomes a person she doesn’t mind spending time with. The play tackles serious themes: privatisation, education, disability, political activism and family, with humour which doesn’t belittle anyone’s memories.
With a class from Granton Primary School playing a key role in the performance, this is a truly intergenerational show. The oldest playwright is over 90 years old.
Creative Producer Liz Hare writes, ‘Once again Citadel Arts Group is working with the community to develop a powerful piece of drama involving performers from the area. The play is a celebration of the cultural richness of Royston Wardieburn and will hopefully take people back to the book that inspired the script.’
‘Windows to Our Past’ is available online.
PERFORMANCE DATES: 16TH and 17TH June 1.30pm
VENUE: North Edinburgh Arts, 12C Macmillan Square, EH4 4AB
DIRECTOR: Mark Kydd
Cast: Jim Bryce, Laverne Edmonds, Chelsea Grace, Mairi Jayne Weir and Deborah Whtye,
Community cast: David Norcliffe and Anna Hutchison, and P4 Granton Primary School pupils, Drama Teacher: Fergus McNicoll
Stage Manager: Maggie Brown
Light and Sound Design: Roddy Simpson
Creative Producer: Liz Hare
Playwrights: Elaine Campbell, San Cassimally, Pamela Hanlon, and Rhona McAdam, with additional material from Richard Peoples.
Citadel Arts Group is a charity (SC 034687) dedicated to giving a voice to older people by preserving their stories and producing their plays in a variety of community venues including schools, care homes, Leith Custom House, churches, libraries and a moving barge.
This project is supported by Awards for All, City of Edinburgh Council Neighbourhood Grant (Forth area) and Gordon Fraser Community Trust.
Royston Wardieburn Community Centre: 2nd March 11am
A free performed reading of a play based on memories from Royston Wardieburn Social History Group performed by professional actors with the participation of Granton Primary School pupils.
Citadel Arts Group returns to its Leith roots with a new play this August.
LEITH CUSTOMS by Hilary Spiers and Laure Paterson, directed by Mark Kydd, is based on the memories of retired officials who worked in Leith Custom House during the 1970s and recall it with affection.
Promenade performances last 1 hour in and around Leith Custom House, on Thursday 8th Aug 3.30pm, Fri 9th Aug at 2pm and Sat 10 Aug at 3.30pm with Q and A after the show.
Citadel Arts Group were surprised to discover a connection between Lily Gladstone, star of Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and one of the main characters in their forthcoming show, The Ghosts of North Leith.
Lily Gladstone comes from Montana, of Blackfeet Indian stock. But on her mother’s side she is descended from the great-great grandfather of a first cousin of the 19th century UK Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone. And – wait for it – Gladstone’s grandmother is Nellie Gladstones (the family later dropped the final ‘s’) who features in Citadel Arts Group’s The Ghosts of North Leith.
Nellie was a feisty businesswoman who, in Hilary Spiers’ section of the play, reprimands her son John for using slave labour on his plantations.
The fruits of this labour fetch up in Leith. Hilary Spiers writes, ‘The Sugar Boycott was a way for middle class women to show their abhorrence of the slave trade by refusing to buy slave-produced sugar. Little is known of Nellie’s life which allowed me to give free rein to my imagination. My play portrays her as something of a radical and an early feminist at odds with her family who derive much of their wealth from slavery.’
When slavery was abolished in 1833, Nellie’s son John Gladstone received the largest payment from the Slave Compensation Commission amounting to over £10m in modern currency. This money no doubt paid for the fine family gravestone in Coburg Street cemetery.
Slavery is a central issue in The Ghosts of North Leith. The play is based on the stories behind seven of the graves in Coburg Street Burial Ground. One tantalising stone commemorates a Jacob Stoney who died in Leith in 1820 but was born in Jamaica on the family plantation.
His fine stone was raised by his sister Mary who was still living in Jamaica. Citadel’s writers have woven a story around these bare facts using detailed historical research and some inspired guesswork.
Some are the graves are of well-known characters like Lady Anne Mackintosh who raised troops in the Jacobite Rebellion of 1756. Having enjoyed the Outlander books, playwright Rhona McAdam was attracted to this real-life Jacobite heroine. ‘I wondered how Lady Anne ended up in North Leith Burial Ground instead of the family estate in the Highlands.’ It appears Leith was a hotbed of Jacobite sympathy.
The figure who links all the stories is Robert Nicoll. Hailed as the second Robert Burns, Nicoll became a radical activist and newspaperman until his early death in 1837, aged only 33.
Nicoll is the conscience of the play, pointing out the hypocrisies and double think of the other characters, all stuck in the limbo of North Leith, regretting their unfulfilled lives. The play uses pathos, humour, music to add another chapter to the rich history of the port of Leith which Citadel has been celebrating for almost thirty years.
The cast is led by Mark Kydd, a Citadel regular. He writes: ‘As an adopted Leither, I’ve always been fascinated by its concealed history … vintage maps showing different street names and open fields in what are now built-up areas.
Citadel has a fine tradition of examining Leith’s past through its work, but here the writers have literally gone underground, exploring the lives of people buried in Coburg Street Cemetery though a combination of painstaking research and imaginative speculation.
One character in the play wryly observes: “They said the deid are quite forgotten after three generations”. We hope that this production goes some way towards redressing the balance by helping to celebrate these otherwise forgotten lives.
The script was given a trial performed reading at Leith Festival in June.
Director Liz Hare said: ’Thanks to the enthusiastic feedback of the Leith people and their supportive comments, we have developed and improved the script for three evening performances.
“Now we exploit light and darkness to create a truly disturbing atmosphere for our North Leith ghosts!”
The venue of the show is North Leith Parish Church, soon due to be released for sale by the Church of Scotland. This will be the audience’s last chance to see a live performance in this beautiful Georgian building, intended as the hub of Leith’s New Town.
Venue: North Leith Parish Church, 51 Madeira Street EH6 4AU
Citadel’s Arts Group’s 12th foray into Leith Festival is an exploration of the atmospheric North Leith Burial Ground. Their playwrights workshop wondered what lies beneath Coburg Street and found a number of big characters interred in this small cemetery.
Seven members of Citadel’s group of older writers each chose to research the story behind one of the graves.
There are people whose achievements and eccentricities will be dramatized in a play, The Ghosts of North Leith. Using music, humour and poetry, the drama will raise awareness of this fascinating area of Leith history.
In the Coburg Street Burial Ground lies Lady Anne Mackintosh nicknamed the ‘Colonel’. Playwright Rhona McAdam explains she was drawn to her ‘as she seemed a strong, independent woman, taking part in the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745.
“Her husband, Sir Angus, chief of Clan Mackintosh, was a Captain in the government troops. Since he was unable, or unwilling, to raise the clan to fight for Bonnie Prince Charlie, Lady Anne did it instead.
“When the Jacobites won the Battle of Prestonpans, Sir Angus surrendered to his wife. After the Battle of Culloden, when the Jacobites were defeated, Lady Anne surrendered to her husband.’
Jim Brown took on the poet, Robert NicolI, heralded as the next Robert Burns. Jim said: ‘I became fascinated by Robert Nicoll because he was a poet, writer and radical newspaper man born in 1814, who packed so much into his short life. He died aged 23.’
No stone marks the burial place of 12-year-old Matilda Molesworth, but burial records indicate the spot. She features in the real-life story of the Trinity poltergeist. One of the collection of unexplained happenings in Catherine Crowe’s 1848 book “The Night Side of Nature“, it has popped up in anthologies of uncanny happenings ever since.
Another member of Citadel’s playwrights’ workshop, novelist Hilary Spiers explains: ” I’ve long been interested in the history of slavery in Scotland.
“While John Gladstones (buried in North Leith graveyard) and his grandson William Gladstone are better known, I felt John’s wife Nellie (who was known to be a very capable woman) might well have held views at odds with the men in her family. Women were a strong if largely unsung force in the abolitionist movement’.
Elaine Campbell came across the North Leith gravestone of three children and told us: ‘I was intrigued. Who were these three bairns so lovingly remembered?
“In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when the Millar children lived and died, infant mortality was ferociously high. Sadly all attempts to locate the children in church records proved fruitless.
“There were Millars living in Leith at the time. I have assumed Peter, John and Archibald were part of this extended, prosperous family of merchants. Although the “Three Cherubs” is my fictional account, I drew on historical material to describe their short lives and untimely deaths.
“By telling their story I hope to have given voice to the countless children who lie long forgotten in North Leith Graveyard’.
Was it chance or Divine intervention that led writers Carolyn and Brian Lincoln to the gravestone of the Rev. Dr. David Johnston? Previous attempts at finding the grave of this pillar of the North Leith community had proved fruitless.
The Lincolns were paying one last visit to the Coburg Street churchyard, when they noticed the letters D.D. poking through the moss. D.D. Doctor of Divinity. They scraped away some moss and there was the name. David Johnston (1735-1824) served the parish for nearly 60 years, a strong leader when Leith was seriously threatened by the ships of John Paul Jones, who supported the breakaway American colonies.
The play, which includes all these stories, and more, will be given a trial performed reading in North Leith Parish Church on 15 June. Citadel Arts Group seeks feedback from this first audience at Leith Festival with a view to staging a full performance of the play later in the year in the same venue.
North Leith Parish Church in Madeira Street welcomes Citadel Arts Group’s interest in the burial ground, and the church building which was to have been the keystone of Leith’s ‘New Town’.
Tim Bell told us: ‘I welcome the play as a chance for local and Edinburgh people to see this beautiful Georgian Church before it is released from the Church of Scotland estate in 2024’.
Venue: North Leith Parish Church, 51 Madeira Street EH6 4AU
Associated event: Hilary Spiers will lead a free guided tour of North Leith Burial Ground in Coburg Street on Monday June 12th at 2pm. Places are limited. Book from Liz Hare
Writers: Carolyn and Brian Lincoln, Jim Brown, John Lamb, Hilary Spiers, Elaine Campbell and Rhona McAdam.
Cast: Mark Kydd, Deborah Whyte, Chelsea Grace, Gregor Davidson, Dale McQueen.
Director: Liz Hare
Sound: Stewart Emm
Citadel Arts Group (SC 034687) is a Leith-based theatre company which specialises in creating new plays based on local stories, memories, and history.
A mother’s experience of caring for her severely disabled son is the basis for a new play which will be performed next month at the Scottish Storytelling Centre.
Caring, by Rhona McAdam from Edinburgh, describes the daily struggle of living with a disabled teenager, and is based on her own life story.
The play, performed by Citadel Arts Group on November 3 and 4, with support from the Lottery, will be free, with a special invitation extended to carers’ groups in the city.
Rhona McAdam, who lives in Colinton, says: “It’s a realistic view of a mother caring for her teenage son.
“She is finding it tougher to care for him because he has a lot of physical care needs. Now he’s getting older she is maybe mothering him too much. In the play it’s his fifteenth birthday and she’s telling him he can’t have another beer.”
According to charity Care for Carers there are now more than 800,000 adult carers in Scotland, and 82 per cent have no time for respite or breaks.
Rhona based the character of Joey on her own son Ruairidh, who had Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and died this year, aged 29, shortly after she finished writing the play.
Boys and young men with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy lack a protein which causes progressive muscle weakness, leading to respiratory problems and difficulty swallowing.
The writer hopes others will be able to relate to the story.
“These are characters and these are their struggles – but it could be any teenager or any mother.
“All Joey wants to do is play on his X Box For Joey it’s a world where he can do things, run, and fight.”
In the play the character of the mother struggles to look after herself as well as her son, but comes to realise she needs to find a way to do this.
“I tried to make it realistic. Mum is no saint – in fact neither Mum or Joey is angelic. They are both a bit grumpy with each other. Mum is tired and a bit frustrated and Joey resents his mum for being annoyed.
“I wanted to show the reality of caring – but also that normal life goes on – whatever difficulties you face.”
Rhona McAdam was one of the writers of Leithers One Family, the play based on a family of Leithers, which Citadel Arts Group created and staged online during lockdown.
A version of the play Leithers Live, was performed at Custom House, Leith in June.
As well as losing her son this year Rhona also lost her husband Iain, who died during lockdown in December 2021. Writing the play and working with Citadel has given her a welcome focus.
She says: “I have written short stories before but I have really enjoyed being part of the collaborative process and working with actors and directors.”
Caring, which will be directed by Mark Kydd, will be staged at the Storytelling Centre on November 3 and 4.
The part of Mum will be played by Laverne Edmonds, Joey will be played by Fraser Allan Hogg, while Dale McQueen will take the supporting roles.
Liz Hare, director of the Citadel Arts Group says: “It will be a very welcome return to the Storytelling Centre for us. Although we are usually associated with Leith, the group originally performed at the Storytelling Centre. It’s a beautiful theatre space and we’re delighted to be going back.
“We’ve done a lot of work with Care for Carers and the Carers’ Group from the Eric Liddell Centre running creative writing workshops and Rhona’s play fits in really well with that. We did an early run through of the play with Edinburgh carers and they gave feedback and suggestions to help with the development of the script.”
Erica Whitaker Wallis, of Care for Carers said: “Across Scotland, there were an estimated 700,000 to 800,000 unpaid carers before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Survey work from Scottish Government in September 2020 suggests the number of adult carers had grown to around 839,000.As a result of the pandemic 90 per cent of carers are spending more time caring, with 82 per cent having had no access to respite or breaks from caring.
“It is therefore more important than ever that we continue to shine a light on the vital contribution that unpaid carers make to our society.
As an organisation we work alongside community partners to provide carers with access to short break opportunities which this year has involved providing drama workshops with Citadel Arts.
“For a carer, just a few hours break away from their caring role can make a big difference to their wellbeing which is why we view these partnerships as so important.”
The project received funding from the National Lottery Community Fund.
Director Mark Kydd said: “I think people will enjoy the play. In spite of the seriousness of the subject matter it’s surprising, it’s funny and it’s playful.
“Because the character Joey loves gaming he wants to be a superhero of his own story and that adds a fantasy element to the narrative.”
Caring, by Rhona McAdam, will be performed at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, High Street, Edinburgh on November 3 and 4, with a matinee on November 4
Thursday 3 November, 7pm
Friday 4 November, 4pm and 7pm
There will be a Q and A after the matinee on November 4 with Erica Whittaker Wallis from Care for Carers.
CITADEL ARTS GROUP present a performed reading of new Scottish comedy
NAN & RITA and the DEAR DEPARTED
By Edinburgh writer Carolyn Lincoln
Top actors Lynne McCallum (Still Game, Taggart) and Estrid Barton (Howard’s End, Still Game, Theodosia) will once again team up for the new Scottish comedy Nan & Rita and the Dear Departed by Edinburgh writer Carolyn Lincoln.
Directed by Adam Tomkins, this is the pandemic-postponed follow-up to Nan & Rita and the Holy Grail which won great feedback in 2018:
“Entertaining dialogue…very clever and genuine use of Scots… fine satirical touches.” “A breath of fresh air and a bloody good laugh.” “Full of energy…well performed… excellent timing… lovely warm performances.”
This lunchtime performance will be in the popular PLAY, PIE AND DOCKERS PINT format. Arrive at Leith Dockers Club at 12:30 for your pie and drink and the performance starts at 1pm. Make sure you allow for extra travelling time because of the current tram works.
Carolyn Lincoln is a former Glasgow Herald staff journalist, radio ‘soap’ writer and occasional contributor to The Scotsman.
Over the years Leith based registered charity Citadel Arts Group has sought to encourage older writers and creatives to take professionally-produced drama and new writing to places and people other Scottish drama doesn’t usually reach.
Performance details
Wednesday 27th April 2022.
Leith Dockers Club, 17 Academy Street, Leith, Edinburgh EH6 7EE.
People should arrive at 12.30 to collect their drink and pie (meat or veg).
Tuesday 16 June & Wednesday 17 June at 1.30pm
North Edinburgh Arts, 12C Macmillan Square, EH4 4AB
Free tickets
