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Duncan McLean

DUNCAN MCLEAN

  (1964 - )
Nationality:    Scottish
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    The Agency (London) Ltd  

Duncan was born in Aberdeenshire in 1964, and has lived in Orkney since 1992. While based in Edinburgh in the 1980s, he started writing songs, stand-up routines and plays for the Merry Mac Fun Co, a Street Theatre and comedy act with agit-prop tendencies. the Merry Macs won various awards, and were twice nominated for the Perrier. they were able to perform in a great range of venues from community halls in Shetland to West End Theatres in London, and from unemployed workers' centres in Rutherglen to the Wogan show on BBC1. In 1992 he published his first book, a collection of short stories called Bucket of Tongues, and since then has published several more ncluding two novels and a first collection of plays, imaginatively entitled Plays: One. Around this time he also set up and ran the Clocktower Press, a small but influential publishing house, which helped bring a new generation of Scottish writers to wider attention. In recent years he has divided his time between writing, music and selling wine and whisky in his wife's family business in Orkney. In 2006 he won the prestigious trade award UK RestaurANT Wine Supplier o the Year. In spring 2007 he returned to writing as his full time occupation (more or less) for the first time since 1997.

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below is a list of Duncan McLean's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         Aalst         Blackden         Highland Shorts         I'd Rather Go Blind         Julie Allerdyce         Long Gone Lonesome         Never been in Baghdad         One Sure Thing         Portrait of the Artist as a Young God         Rug Comes To Shuv

Aalst

Synopsis:
A young couple check into a hotel with their two small children. A week passes before the police make a chilling discovery. In 1999, in the suburban town of Aalst, two parents murdered their children. the ensuing high profile and Dramatic trial led to much soul searching in the Belgian media. In 2005 Belgian theatre company, Victoria, Dramatised the case, working from source material including statements and interviews, TV footage of the trial and a documentary on the murder investigation. Produced in theatres and festivals across Europe, Aalst has built a reputation as a powerful and complex piece of modern theatre which raises disturbing questions - questions that have no easy answer. Aalst is a production based on real events, born in Europe, re-worked, re-shaped and re-imagined for a Scottish audience by a brilliant and eclectic creative team.

Notes:
Original Playwright - Dimitri Verhulst And Pol Heyvaert

1st Produced:

Organisations:
National Theatre of Scotland, Victoria and Tramway

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
new Scottish version Adaptation

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  voice

Further Reference:
-

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Blackden

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
From His Novel

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Castlemilk

1st Published:
in "Plays 1", Methuen, London, 1999   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Adaptation

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Highland Shorts

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
George Gunn, Marjory Callander, Duncan McLean, Grace Barnes, Iain F Macleod, Gordon Urquhart, Carol I Walker

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Traverse Publishing, 1999   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Shorts One Act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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I'd Rather Go Blind

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    -

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Plays 1", Methuen, London, 1999   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Julie Allerdyce

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    -

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Made In Scotland: An Anthology Of New Scottish Plays" Methuen, London, 1995   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Long Gone Lonesome

Synopsis:
Thomas Fraser of Burra Isle, Shetland, a fisherman and crofter, died in 1978 aged 50. During his life he recorded thousands of bluegrass songs at home using a reel-to-reel recorder. His tapes were only discovered 25 years later by his grandson who compiled and released them as the album Long Gone Lonesome Blues in 2002. the critics called it "one of the most remarkable stories in recording history" and "some of the greatest American music you will hear". Three further compilations have subsequently been released; You and My Old Guitar (2003), Treasure Untold (2005) and That Far Away Land (2008). Thomas Fraser is now acknowledged as a country music legend. the Thomas Fraser Memorial Festival is held in Burra Isle each November, and in December 2008, Thomas's life was the subject of a major BBC TV documentary Shetland Lone Star. A fifth and final posthumous CD is due for release in 2010.

Notes:
Created by Duncan McLean And the Lone Star Swing Band. A musical seance, to conjure up through songs And story-telling, the extraordinary life And times of the legendary Shetland musician Thomas Fraser

1st Produced:
Cromarty hall, Orkney    06 Oct 2009

Organisations:
National Theatre of Scotland

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
musical seance

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Never been in Baghdad

Synopsis:
Rogerio and Gloria have just moved flat in the city. Everything's still in boxes, but they've managed to unpack the telly, allowing them to have it on in the background while they sort out their life and belongings from the mounds of boxes. As they search for the shower attachment and try and locate the new water heater, the 2003 invasion of Iraq silently plays in the background. Those first stages of the invasion, when dolphins were used to clear the underwater mines from the ports and somehow it seemed that the war would not last long. . .

Notes:
Original Playwright - Abel Neves

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Adaptation

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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One Sure Thing

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    -

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Plays 1", Methuen, London, 1999   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Portrait of the Artist as a Young God

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    1984

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
National Library of Scotland ref: Traverse - Acc.9285/103

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Rug Comes To Shuv

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    -

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Plays 1", Methuen, London, 1999   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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