"The most important playwright to have emerged north of the border in years." (Scotsman) 
 Europe is set in a railway station at an unnamed border town where old and new Europeans weave a tale of love, loss and longing. "Fierce, compassionate, mightily ambitious drama. . .There is the sharp, analytic intelligence, the crackling inventiveness of a real writer buzzing about this gripping play." (The Scotsman) The Architect charts the rise and fall of Leo Black, once an idealistic and idolised designer, whose magnificent visions are now crumbling, along with his family, in the light of grubby reality. "Provides convincing evidence of David Greig's confident transition from a dramatist of promise to one of stature." (Indpendent)

'Europe' & 'The Architect' (Modern Plays)

Greig, David

Humor & Entertainment

Methuen Drama

"The most important playwright to have emerged north of the border in years." (Scotsman)Two Soviet cosmonauts, losing contact with the world they left behind; a Scottish civil servant in the throes of a midlife crisis; a Norwegian peace negotiator; a Russian erotic dancer; a French UFO researcher and an Edinburgh speech therapist in search of her missing husband are brought together through an extraordinary thread of connections, which bring us into contact with both the intimate and the epic.Space odyssey meets unrequited love story as The Cosmonaut's last message... explores the incessant search for harmony and peace within all of us.

The Cosmonaut's Last Message... (Modern Plays)

Literature & Fiction

Dramas & Plays

Two plays about cultural identity from Scotland and Catalonia, which received their English-language premières in August 1999 at the Royal Lyceum Theatre as part of the Edinburgh International Festival in Traverse Theatre Company productions
 The Speculator is set in Paris in 1720. The French playwright Pierre Marivaux is playing games with love and chance. Europe is in chaos. And John Law, a Scot from Edinburgh, is the richest and most powerful man in the world. He upsets order and alters the value of money. How long can his influence last? David Greig's new play is a rambunctious costume drama that toys with history and questions whether imagination can, or should, triumph over truth. Some events in the play are true. The rest is speculation. The Meeting, translated by John London, follows a string of chance encounters. A businessman on a journey crosses paths and shares his life with those of passing strangers. An old man is convinced there is buried treasure in the city park. A watchmaker talks to him about time. A young man and a traveller speak of their discontent. Shared pasts and common desires create a web of complexity in Luisa Cunillé's challenging new play, turning random meetings into rendezvous with destiny."David Greig is the most consistently interesting, prolific and artistically ambitious writer of his generation" (Scotsman); "Frequently compared to Harold Pinter...Cunillé has discovered a special style" (ABC, Madrid)

The Speculator and The Meeting (Modern Plays)

Cunillé, Lluïsa

A new play for the Royal Shakespeare Company"World's moving. People moving. We've only to cross the sea. Same sea we're looking at. The world's waiting for us. We've only to take our place it." In 1936, 1974 and 1996, a woman shapes dramatic events in a rural community on the Scottish coast, reflecting the shifting political and social fabric of Britain in the 20th century. Victoria will received its World première in London at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2000."David Greig is the most consistently interesting, prolific and artistically ambitious writer of his generation" (Scotsman)

Victoria (Modern Plays)

The first collection of plays of one of Scotland's best-known contemporary dramatists 
 Europe is set in a railway station at an unnamed border town where old and new Europeans weave a tale of love, loss and longing. "Fierce, compassionate, mightily ambitious drama. . .there is the sharp, analytic intelligence, the crackling inventiveness of a real writer buzzing about this gripping play" Scotsman The Architect charts the rise and fall of Leo Black, once an idealistic and idolised designer, whose magnificent visions are now crumbling, along with his family, in the light of grubby reality. "Provides convincing evidence of David Greig's confident transition from a dramatist of promise to one of stature" Independent. Lyrical, soulful and darkly funny, The Cosmonaut'S Last Message weaves together the stories of a fraught Scottish couple whose Tv is on the blink, a Norwegian Un peace negotiator, a young prostitute, a French Ufo researcher, a pregnant police woman and two forgotten Cosmonauts who sadly orbit the planet. "The most important playwright to have emerged north of the border in years" Scotsman

Greig Plays:1: Europe; The Architect; The Cosmonaut's Last Message... (Contemporary Dramatists)

Was Casanova's promiscuity part of a coherent philosophical position, involving the celebration of pleasure for both parties involved, or was that just a good line for getting their clothes off? David Greig explores the possibilities.

Casanova: A Suspect Culture text

Faber and Faber

In 1939, on the eve of the Second World War, two young Cambridge ornithologists arrive on a remote, uninhabited Scottish island, sent by the government to survey the island's birds. With them on the island are Kirk, the authoritarian leaseholder, and his niece Ellen, a young woman in love with the stars of silent comedy. Left alone on a scrap of land surrounded by the vast Atlantic, they observe each other. Poetic, intense and gripping, Outlying Islands is a glimpse of an innocence, a way of seeing and a way of being young that is about to be destroyed forever. Outlying Islands was premiered at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in July 2002 and transferred to the Royal Court, London in Autumn 2002.

Outlying Islands

David Greig

Midsummer's weekend in Edinburgh. It's raining. Bob's a failing car salesman on the fringes of the city's underworld. Helena's a high-powered divorce lawyer with a taste for other people's husbands. She's totally out of his league; he's not her type at all. They absolutely should not sleep together. Which is, of course, why they do. Midsummer is the story of a great lost weekend of bridge-burning, car chases, wedding bust-ups, bondage miscalculations, midnight trysts and self-loathing hangovers. A collaboration between playwright David Greig and singer-songwriter Gordon McIntyre, Midsummer opened at the Traverse Theatre in October 2008 and was revived for an international tour in the summer of 2009.

Midsummer [a play with songs] (Faber Drama)

Faber&Faber

Late at night in a foreign land, an English army sweeps through the landscape under cover of darkness and takes the seat of power. Struggling to contain his men and the ambitions of his superiors, the commanding officer attempts to negotiate the unspoken rules of this alien country. He seeks to restore peace to a country ravaged by war. This is Scotland in the eleventh century at the height of the fight for succession of the Scottish throne. David Greig's Dunsinane premiered in February 2010 at Hampstead Theatre, London, in a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Dunsinane (Faber Drama)

Duck Macatarsney cares for her biker dad, Duke, whose MS is getting worse. Duke is a spliff-smoking (for medicinal reasons you understand), bike-riding, heavy-metal- and horror-movie-loving, pizza-eating widower who has brought up Duck since the death of her mum in a crash. The two of them are just about surviving when one morning the Duke wakes up blind and the Duck hears Social Services are coming to take her away. "The Monster in the Hall" follows Duck as she tries to protect her world from the terrifying prospect of change. David Greig's "The Monster in the Hall" premiered at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, in autumn 2010, and was staged at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in 2011 as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Monster in the Hall

Arts & Photography

Performing Arts

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Books by Greig, David