History: Artistic Directors - Mark Thomson 2003-Present
Mark Thomson, in the short space of three years, has headed a perceptible development in the work of the Lyceum, augmenting and building on the achievements of the past forty years. Mark’s rise to the top has been swift. In 1987 he began his career as Drama Worker in Glasgow, at the Maryhill Arts Centre, where he directed and wrote for the community theatre company. He then moved to London as Director of the Cockpit Young Playwrights Group, supporting new writers, whilst developing his own skills as a director and as a writer himself. From here he became Assistant Director at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, followed by two years as Assistant Director RSC, working with Sam Mendes, Adrian Noble, Katie Mitchell and Michael Bogdanov. Mark then spent a year as Associate Director at the Nottingham Playhouse, one of the finest producing houses in Britain. Coming back to Scotland in 1997, Mark remained Artistic Director of the Brunton Theatre until 2002. During this time he gained a high reputation for the excellence of his work, and was widely respected for his refusal to compromise his high ideals and aspirations, in spite of the most difficult political and financial constraints. The Lyceum Board appointed Mark Thomson as Artistic Director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre Company and he presented his first season in Autumn 2003.
Continuing the Lyceum’s tradition of offering a Shakespeare play each year, Mark’s first production as Artistic Director was Julius Caesar: a brave choice. Played in a contemporary setting, the production brought many leading Scottish actors back to the Lyceum. It visually demonstrated a confidence in the Scottish stage, a commitment that can be seen as a feature of Mark’s Lyceum programming.
Othello is chiefly remembered for Liam Brennan’s superbly cynical and manipulative Iago in a performance that reflected much of the experience he had gained under Mark’s guidance at the Brunton, and later by playing leading roles at Shakespeare’s Globe.
A breath-taking scene change in As You Like It transported the audience from the cruel and metallic world of the Court, to the brilliant translucence of a stylised Forest of Arden of the mind, in an epiphany of technical and artistic brilliance.
In his first season, Mark continued the emphasis of previous Lyceum Artistic Directors in encouraging new or recent work. Des Dillon’s raucous comedy, Six Black Candles, played to capacity audiences. Blood and Ice, Liz Lochhead’s play about the composition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, was revived. Uncle Varick, a new adaptation by John Byrne of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, with Brian Cox in the central role as the hapless Varick concluded a strong season. At Christmas, Stuart Paterson’s The Princess and the Goblin further confirmed Mark’s strong support for Scottish writers. Two contemporary American plays, A Life in the Theatre by David Mamet, with Jimmy Chisholm, and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, directed by John Dove, completed Mark’s Lyceum debut.
Season 2004 –2005 opened with Mark directing his own play, A Madman Sings to the Moon, which had already won a Glasgow Herald Award, and for Tony Cownie Best Actor, in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It was an outstanding success. Enthusiastic audiences packed the Lyceum and the production again won wide critical acclaim. Sharman Macdonald’s new play, The Girl with Red Hair, in collaboration with the innovative Bush Theatre in London was the first of several such co-productions between the Lyceum and other leading producing companies in Britain, and has become a feature of Mark’s forward looking and open planning.
A highlight of the season was the joint production with the Theatre Royal Bath of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger, which had revolutionised British Theatre when it opened at the Royal Court in May 1956. At the Lyceum, Jimmy Porter, the ‘Wolverhampton Hamlet’, was played by David Tennant and the part of Cliff by Steven McNicoll, two brilliant Scottish actors at the top of their profession. The production was highly praised in the UK press, with David Tenant winning a CATS award for Best Actor and Steve McNicoll nominated for a TMA award for Best Supporting Actor.
Steven McNicoll was to win further acclaim in Tom McGrath’s hilarious yet poignant Laurel and Hardy, which filled the theatre, was praised by the critics, and invited in the summer to take part in the prestigious Dublin Festival of Drama.
Admirably illustrating Mark Thomson’s growing confidence and vision was John Clifford’s adaptation of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Produced and directed to her own uncompromisingly high standards by Muriel Romanes, and designed by Francis O’Connor, the vibrant script, powerful acting, and evocative set changed from claustrophobic society interior to snowy Russian forest vista. The play will be long remembered for its shattering climax as Anna threw herself under the inexorable wheels of that terrifying train.
2005 –2006 celebrates 40 years of the Royal Lyceum Company’s history with Mark’s most ambitious programme yet: Shakespeare’s As You Like It; Tennessee William’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; an adaptation of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol; Moliere’s Tartuffe in a translation into Scots by Liz Lochhead; Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of Laclos de Choderlos’ 18 th century novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses to be directed by John Dove; and most ambitious of all, the transposition of Goethe’s epic poem Faust into two plays, Faust Part 1 and Faust Part 2 by John Clifford.
Choosing Shakespeare’s As You Like It announced Mark’s intentions to break the mould of the school examination syllabus. Richard Baron directed the steamy A Cat on the Hot Tin Roof in a joint production by the Nottingham Playhouse, the Belgrade Theatre Coventry, and The Royal Lyceum Edinburgh. Liz Lochhead’s Tartuffe romped on stage in Tony Cownie’s rollicking, satirical production. Jemima Levick’s A Christmas Carol was a joy. John Bett as Scrooge came straight from John Leech’s illustrations of Dickens, and 19 th century London evoked in Francis O’Connor’s Gustave Dore design. For this production of A Christmas Carol Jemima was listed in ‘Plays International’ as one of the Most Promising Newcomers of the British stage.
Undoubtedly, the most important production of this season has been Mark Thomson’s production of John Clifford’s Faust 1 and 2. It is probably the most ambitious project in the Lyceum Company’s history. It is huge. A universal and timeless work that attempts to encompass the whole of man’s experience and an understanding of the world he inhabits, Faust is an epic poem that took Goethe sixty years to complete. It is almost impossible to dramatise. And yet, in John Clifford’s highly personal and truthful adaptation Faust has been miraculously brought to the stage and forever captured in the minds and imaginations of its large and highly appreciative audiences. We can only marvel at Mark’s foresight and bravery in choosing such a challenging project. It has demanded belief, hard work, and dedication from the whole creative team. The writer, producer, director, designer, composer, choreographer, actors, technicians and backstage staff, coming together in a wonderful ensemble of the highest talent, brought the whole cosmos to glorious theatrical life.
These have been three special years in the history of the Royal Lyceum. Mark has brought to this theatre a spectacular programme of plays. The future of the Lyceum is bright. In Mark Thomson we have an Artistic Director who will never compromise his high ideals or his passionate belief in the importance of theatre in all our lives.
Mike Ridings 2005