Tony Graham

Freelance theatre director including 14 years at the helm of the Unicorn Theatre and before that, Artistic Director of TAG Theatre, directing Alasdair’s book Lanark for the Edinburgh International Festival 1995.

What does Alasdair Gray mean to you?

Explain yourself?

Raw: Alasdair dug deep into himself and the heart of Glasgow and Scotland without fear or ambition. His ferocious dissection was playful, steeped in the joys and miseries of life and its struggles.

Radical: He ignored the siren lures of conformity and the establishment, painting painful truths in the face of a moneyed, comfortable establishment. Like other prophets, Alasdair had a unique style on page and off.

Visionary: His futurism, far from being weird, is all too familiar in our rapidly deteriorating, unjust world. Alasdair’s radicalism was symphonic, conjuring up possible worlds, and we need his voice now more than ever.

Anything else about Alasdair you’d like to add?

What I remember most of Alasdair personally was an enduring, gentle kindness. He was generous with his time and work. He loved to talk and would often divert himself with new ideas and spur-of-the-moment turnings which led to all sorts of new, surprising vistas. The spontaneity and freshness of his thought reminded me that, like a jazz musician, he loved to improvise on a theme or melody. He didn’t edit himself - part of his truthful, care-not, stream of consciousness - and would often explode with loud guffaws and wild giggles, the source of which was infectious but not always obvious. His erudition was astonishing, holding forth like a living encyclopaedia written by an impish anarchist.

I first met him when he agreed to design my version of A Clockwork Orange for TAG (Theatre About Glasgow). I was very taken with his openness and welcome. Not a hint of ‘great man’ about him. Anthony Burgess said he preferred it to the RSC version. He was so supportive about our Lanark. It was a production that didn’t do justice to the book in the way I’d have liked. The critics, bar a handful, decided to maul it. But Alasdair felt otherwise and I don’t think it was just loyalty. Living outside the media circus, he was not susceptible, holding firmly to his own judgments. This considered imperviousness taught me something about art and love: two things that Alasdair held onto all his life.

How adaptable is Alasdair Gray?

Find out how Tony Graham and other daring creatives did the impossible and adapted Alasdair’s work for stage, audio and screen.

Not all the drama happened on stage! Read more