And it sort of magnifies the loneliness of being a maverick as well, that he’s left with Cafferty as his closest friend and his biggest enemy — I’ve always found that dynamic between them really fascinating.
Yes, absolutely — the loneliness of deciding to go your own path.
That’s the cost, isn’t it? And that’s why most of us don’t and why we respect these heroes on-screen and on-stage who do.
Because it’s glamorous in your twenties and thirties. It’s less glamorous in your sixties or seventies!
Yes, because you’re left with the bill at the end of all that when you’ve isolated everyone and taken all these turns.
And your family — his daughter is estranged, he doesn’t have a partner, his friendships are tenuous, you mentioned Cafferty. It’s fascinating.
How much did you want to recreate the atmosphere of Edinburgh onstage? Given that it’s such a huge part of the books and on screen — was that a key aspect for you in terms of design and direction?
Edinburgh is another character in those novels. I lived and worked in Edinburgh for five years and met Rona in Edinburgh and our first shows were in Edinburgh — so I have a tremendous emotional connection to Edinburgh, it’s a city I really love.
The challenge in the play is that you’re in lots of different environments — mainly in Rebus’s front room — and so we were looking for a space that would allow us to move fluidly between a pub, to a tower block, to his house. The designer, Ti Green, and I felt that those stairwells — which is the kind of flat that Rebus lives in — are very iconic to Edinburgh and that we wanted something that was really simple and sculptural.
We weren’t trying to be naturalistic in our setting, but so that we were able to move between locations while keeping Edinburgh in the forefront, the stairwells became the focus of how we moved forward in the design. We were really lucky because we are working with a Scottish production manager and so he’s a very good reality test of what we’re doing. And it comes down to things like the paint finish — we can get the shape of the stairwell right but then you have to look at the paint finishes, it’s all in those details. If you have a very abstract sculptural space, then every object you put in becomes significant and has to tell a story. So those are the kind of conversations that we had.
Music has always been such a huge part of the novels. How important is music to this script and the production?
One of the things, of course, is that Rebus has very specific musical tastes and music is key in the detective storytelling of the play, so we have a composer who is going to write a new score for the play but also work quite closely with Ian to identify the right kinds of songs for Rebus to listen to. It’s just a really important part of Rebus’s world, the songs that he listens to. In terms of the questions you asked about genre, obviously music is quite a key part to that — you can tell a lot of story through music — so that’s another really strong component of the design and the storytelling.
Do you have a favourite scene or moment in the script that you think most about?
I think what really drew me was the way that those scenes are like a staircase — they lead up to that final confrontation. I read the play like I would read a thriller, I really wanted to know what happened. That is exciting to me because you need every moment, and it felt like no moment was wasted. And that, I thought, was quite genius.
Set design by Ti Green
Photography (unless otherwise stated): Gil Gillis ARPS
Birmingham Repertory Theatre
Birmingham Repertory Theatre Company is one of Britain’s leading producing theatre companies. Its mission is to inspire a lifelong love of theatre in the diverse communities of Birmingham and beyond. As well as presenting over sixty productions on its three stages every year, the theatre tours its productions nationally and internationally, showcasing theatre made in Birmingham.
The commissioning and production of new work lies at the core of The REP’s programme and over the last fifteen years, the company has produced more than 130 new plays. The theatre’s outreach programme engages with over 7,000 young people and adults through its learning and participation programme, equating to 30,000 individual educational sessions. The REP is also committed to nurturing new talent through its youth theatre groups, and training up and coming writers, directors and artists through its REP Foundry initiative. The REP’s Furnace programme unites established theatre practitioners with Birmingham’s communities to make high quality, unique theatre.
Many of The REP’s productions go on to have lives beyond Birmingham. Recent tours include What Shadows, The Government Inspector, Of Mice And Men, Anita And Me, Back Down, Nativity! The Musical and The King’s Speech. The theatre’s long-running production of The Snowman celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2018 and also its 21st consecutive Christmas season in the West End.