Robert McLellan
| Robert McLellan | |
|---|---|
| Born | Robert McLellan 28 January 1907 Linmill Farm, Kirkfieldbank, Lanarkshire, Scotland |
| Died | 27 January 1985 (aged 77) High Corrie, Isle of Arran, Scotland |
| Occupation | playwright, poet, writer, elected councillor |
| Language | Scots and English |
| Nationality | Scottish |
| Genre | comedy, verse drama, radio drama, short fiction, poetry, non-fiction |
| Subject | Scottish character, history, enlightenment era Edinburgh, cultural politics, notable historical figures, childhood experience, Scotland's languages, land, island life |
| Literary movement | Scottish renaissance |
| Notable works |
Jamie the Saxt (1936) The Flouers o Edinburgh (1948) Sweet Largie Bay (1956) The Hypocrite (1967) Linmill Stories (1939-65, collected 1990) |
| Notable awards | OBE, Arts Council of Great Britain Poetry Award |
| Spouse | Kathleen Heys |
| Relatives | John McLellan (father, d.1962), founder of the Allander Press; Sarah McLellan (Pritchard) (sister, b.1914), stained glass artist |
Robert McLellan OBE (1907–1985) was a Scottish dramatist, poet and writer of the Linmill Stories, working principally in the Scots language. His plays were generally popular comedies with exceptionally well-realised historical settings, including most notably Toom Byres, Jamie the Saxt, Torwatletie, The Flouers o Edinburgh and The Hypocrite. He also wrote works of dramatic verse such as The Carlin Moth. His Linmill cycle of short stories, collected posthumously in 1990, are counted with Lorimer’s Bible as being among some of the most important Twentieth Century prose in Scots.
McLellan was born in Lanarkshire, grew up in Milngavie and attended the University of Glasgow in the 1920s. He had begun to write drama in Glasgow by the early 1930s and most of his plays in this prolific early period were first produced by the Curtain Theatre. After marriage in 1938, he moved to the Island of Arran. During World War Two McLellan served with the Royal Artillery mainly in coastal defence on postings outwith Scotland, including the Faeroe Islands. On return to Scotland in 1946 he resumed his career as a full-time playwright with hopes of a transformed culture for Scottish drama spearheaded by the likes of James Bridie’s newly founded Citizens Theatre in Glasgow. But after his rupture with Bridie in the late 1948, McLellan grew increasing dissatisfied with a Scottish theatrical culture which showed insufficient understanding of Scottish subjects and language. During the 1950s he turned increasingly to the medium of radio, finding greater sympathy for his aims with the Scottish BBC drama producer James Crampsie. By the 1960s his works began to break into Scottish television while a number of his stage plays, particularly Flouers o Edinburgh, were a staple part of a popular Scottish repertoire.
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