Maw Broon

• Written by Jackie Kay
• Directed by Maggie Kinloch
• Starring:
  • Terry Neason
  • Suzanne Bonnar
  • Tom Urie
• Design Mentor Robin Peoples
• Set Design Andrew Wilson
• Lighting Design Grant Anderson
• Costume Design Holly Hodgart

The Maw Broon Monologues was performed at Glasgow’s Tron Theatre in 2009 as part of the Glasgay! arts festival. It was written by Jackie Kay and directed by Maggie Kinloch. The Broons are a Scottish institution and all Scots are familiar with the comics strip and the character of Maw Broon.

Designing a set for the Broons had copyright issues in that we couldn’t reproduce anything from the actual comic. In a way this allowed greater freedom to explore the character of Maw Broon and her world. We wanted to have the essence of Maw Broon and a certain type of cosy, familiar, Scottishness in the set that would connect with the an audience who would on the whole be familiar with Maw Broon and her family.

We used picture frames to represent the characters and placed items within them that the audience would recognise as representing each particular character. This meant we still had all the Broons family represented even though only Maw and Daphne Broon were seen on stage. Lighting played a big part in this design and the lighting designer and I both worked closely to make the design come together as one.