"The six plays gathered together in this anthology are seminal works in the unprecedented flowering of Scottish drama that occurred in the 1970s - a time when, as one critic remarked, 'Scottish theatre was alive as never before, with one fine play following another'."--Jacket.

Written accessibly for the theatre-going general public, this is an ideal guide to the new Scottish theatre: its people, its plays, its politics, its companies and its audiences. Directors, playwrights, journalists and distinguished theatre critics offer personal, challenging and wide-ranging insights into the last 25 years of Scottish theatre.

This revelatory study explores how Scottish history plays, especially since the 1930s, raise issues of ideology, national identity, historiography, mythology, gender and especially Scottish language. Covering topics up to the end of World War Two, the book addresses the work of many key figures from the last century of Scottish theatre, including Robert McLellan and his contemporaries, and also Hector MacMillan, Stewart Conn, John McGrath, Donald Campbell, Bill Bryden, Sue Glover, Liz Lochhead, Jo Clifford, Peter Arnott, David Greig, Rona Munro and others often neglected or misunderstood. Setting these writers’ achievements in the context of their Scottish and European predecessors, Ian Brown offers fresh insights into key aspects of Scottish theatre. As such, this represents the first study to offer an overarching view of historical representation on Scottish stages, exploring the nature of ‘history’ and ‘myth’ and relating these afresh to how dramatists use – and subvert – them. Engaging and accessible, this innovative book will attract scholars and students interested in history, ideology, mythology, theatre politics and explorations of national and gender identity.

This collection of essays represents the first extended analysis of the nature and practice of modern translation into Scots. It comprises essays of two complementary kinds: reflections by translators on their practice in a given work, and critical analyses of the use of Scots in representative translations. The twelve essays cover poetry, fiction, drama and folk ballads, and translations from Greek, Latin, Chinese, Italian, French, Russian, Danish, Romanesco and Quebecois.

Challenging the dominant view of a broken and discontinuous dramatic culture in Scotland, this book outlines the variety and richness of the nation ́s performance traditions and multilingual theatre history. Brown illuminates enduring strands of hybridity and diversity which use theatre and theatricality as a means of challenging establishment views, and of exploring social, political, and religious change. He describes the ways in which politically and religiously divisive moments in Scottish history, such as the Reformation and political Union, fostered alternative dramatic modes and means of expression. This major revisionist history also analyses the changing relationships between drama, culture, and political change in Scotland in the 20th and 21st centuries, drawing on the work of an extensive range of modern and contemporary Scottish playwrights and drama practitioners. Ian Brown is a playwright, poet and Professor of Drama at Kingston University, London. Until recently Chair of the Scottish Society of Playwrights, he was General Editor of the Edinburgh History of Scottish Theatre (EUP, 2007) and editor of From Tartan to Tartanry: Scottish Culture, History and Myth (EUP, 2010) and The Edinburgh Companion to Scottish Drama (EUP, 2011). He has published widely on theatre, cultural policy and literature and language.

Moving Target offers a rigorous exploration of the practice of translating for the theatre. The twelve essays in the volume span a range of work from Eastern and Western Europe, Canada and the United States. For the first time, this book draws together existing translation theory with contemporary practice to shed light on a hitherto neglected aspect of the production process. How does the theatre translator mediate between source text, performance text and target audience? What happens when theatre is transposed from one culture to another? What are the obstacles to theatre translation, and what are the opportunities? Central to the debate throughout is the role of the translator in creating not only a linguistic text but also a performance text, as the contributors repeatedly demonstrate an illuminating sensibility to the demands and potential of theatre production. Impacting upon areas of (inter)cultural theory as well as theatre studies and translation studies, the result is a startling revelation of the joys, as well as the frustrations of the dramatic art of the translator for performance.

The 1970s saw a change in the fortunes of the Scottish national side. Having exited undefeated at the 1974 World Cup in West Germany, the sobering trip to Argentina 78 prompted more realistic future expectations. Extensively researched, Scotland in the 70s examines the decade's 89 matches in depth, with the help of countless star contributors.

Suspect Culture was Scotland’s leading experimental theatre company between 1993 and 2009. Based in Glasgow, it was formed of a core group of associate artists who collaborated in making groundbreaking, high quality new work which gained an international reputation. Over the course of its 16-year history the company worked with some of the most respected artists and organizations in the UK and internationally, and made a significant contribution to the British theatre scene of the 1990s and early 2000s. Described by the Scotsman on Sunday as ‘Scottish theatre’s major creative powerhouse’ and by The Times as ‘the most adventurous, most in-tune-with-the-times theatre company in Britain’, Suspect Culture have had a quietly decisive impact on British theatre. This book surveys the company’s history and ideas and includes an overview of the Company by David Greig; co-founder, writer, dramaturg and sometime actor with Suspect Culture and the perspective of the Company from Brazilian director and writer Mauricio Paroni de Castro, one of Suspect Culture’s many international artistic associates. Also included here are the previously unpublished playtexts of three of its most celebrated shows, Timeless, Mainstream and Lament (all created by the company with text by David Greig).

Were the 1970s really `the devils decade'? Images of strikes, galloping inflation, rising unemployment and bitter social divisions evoke a period of unparalleled economic decline, political confrontation and social fragmentation. But how significant were the pessimism and self-doubt of the 1970s, and what was the legacy of its cultural conflicts? Covering the entire spectrum of the arts - drama, television, film, poetry, the novel, popular music, dance, cinema and the visual arts - The Arts in the 1970s challenges received perceptions of the decade as one of cultural decline. The collection breaks new ground in providing the first detailed analysis of the cultural production of the decade as a whole, providing an invaluable resource for all those involved in cultural, media and communications studies.