Douglas Maxwell is busy. Not just ticking over, but busy in an enviable, up to your eyeballs-type way most playwrights can only dream of. His life has been consumed by the three Rs: rehearsals, research and rewrites. He is enjoying every minute.
The Girvan-born writer's stock has risen rapidly over the last two years, thanks to the success of his plays, Decky Does a Bronco, Helmet and Our Bad Magnet. His new show, Variety, will run at the Edinburgh International Festival in August. Set during the death throes of Scotland's variety theatre and music halls, it is partly inspired by his great grandfather.
''After my grandad's funeral last year, my grandmother got out a tin which had an obituary of her father in it,'' says 28-year-old Maxwell. ''It turned out he used to run the King's Variety Theatre in Kilmarnock and was also a musician, painter and actor. It struck me that I was in roughly the same job.''
His next play, The Ballad of James II, will be staged at The Tron, Glasgow, in the new year. He has also been commissioned by the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, to write another play, Melody, and recently been made a Creative Fellow of the department of humanities at Edinburgh University.
''They are giving me an office and a computer which is going to be fantastic,'' he says, with a smile. ''It only lasts a year but is a great honour.''
Despite his rise and rise, Maxwell seems well grounded. ''At one point I was thinking of packing it in,'' he says. ''I had been writing for about five years before I got a commission and had some terrible reactions to my plays. I got some particularly bad rejection letters including one that said, 'Please stop writing'. I did almost give up. Of course, now I'm glad I didn't.''
Variety, King's Theatre, Edinburgh, August 12-17
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article