John Byrne (playwright)

John Byrne
Born John Patrick Byrne
(1940-01-06) 6 January 1940
Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland
Alma mater Glasgow School of Art
Partner

Alice Simpson (c.1963 - c.1989)

Tilda Swinton (1989-2003)

Jeanine Davies (c.2005-present)
Children 4

John Patrick Byrne (born 6 January 1940) is a Scottish playwright and artist. Perhaps best known for writing The Slab Boys Trilogy of plays about working-class life in Scotland, he has been described as Paisley's first postmodernist.[1]

Life

John Byrne was born into a family of Irish Catholic descent in Paisley, Renfrewshire, where he grew up in the Ferguslie Park housing scheme and was educated at the town's St Mirin's Academy before attending Glasgow School of Art (1958–63). After the death of Byrne's mother, who was prone to psychotic episodes, he was informed by a cousin that he was born of an incestuous relationship. He is thus the biological son of his mother, Alice, and his grandfather, Patrick McShane. Byrne first revealed these details in 2017.[2]

Byrne has received several Honorary Doctorates: In 1997, from the University of Paisley; in 2006, from the Robert Gordon University Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen; in 2011, from the University of Dundee; and in 2015, from the University of Stirling. In 2004, he was made an Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy.

Byrne separated from his first wife, Alice Simpson, with whom he has two children in the late 1980s. He and the actress Tilda Swinton were in a relationship from around 1989 to 2003. They have two children, twins Honor and Xavier, born in 1997.[3] Byrne is married to theatrical lighting specialist Jeanine Davies. They live in Edinburgh.

Work

John Byrne is best known as a playwright for The Slab Boys Trilogy. He has also been regarded as one of Scotland's foremost television writers. He had also designed for the Traverse, 7:84, Hampstead Theatre, Bush Theatre, Scottish Opera and the Citizens Theatre. For the original 7:84 production of The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black Black Oil he designed a seven-foot-high pop-up book of stage designs, which is now on display at the V&A Dundee’s Scottish Design Galleries.[4]

As an artist, Byrne's first London one-man show was held at the Portal Galley in 1967, while he was working as a carpet designer with A.F Stoddart in Elderslie. His work is held in major collections in Scotland and abroad.

Writer

Year Title Notes
1977 Writer's Cramp radio play[5]
1978 The Slab Boys
1979 The Loveliest Night of the Year
Normal Service
Hooray for Hollywood
Play for Today TV version of The Slab Boys
1980 Babes in the Wood
1981 Cara Coco
1984 Candy Kisses
Crown Court TV series
1985 London Cuckolds
1986 Scotch & Wry video
1987 Tutti Frutti BAFTA award-winning series for BBC Television
Double Scotch & Wry video
1988 Normal Service TV movie
Arena writer/director
1990 Your Cheatin' Heart TV series
1992 Colquhoun and MacBryde
1993 Screenplay writer/director
1997 The Government Inspector
2004 Uncle Varick
2006 Tutti Frutti Stage adaptation for the National Theatre of Scotland, co-produced by His Majesty's Theatre, Aberdeen
Nova Scotia
2010 The Cherry Orchard
2014 Three Sisters

Art

From 1964 until 1966 he designed jackets for Penguin Books. Following unsuccessful experiences with London galleries he released (through London's Portal Gallery) a series of works from 1967 under the pseudonym of "Patrick" he claimed were created by his father, an alleged self-taught painter of faux-naïf images.[6] Having enjoyed several successful shows, Byrne's career as a professional painter commenced in 1968, when he left Stoddard's.

As well as designing the scenery for his own plays Byrne, in collaboration with director Robin Lefrevre, also designed the settings for Snoo Wilson's The Number of the Beast (Bush 1982) and Clifford Odets' The Country Girl (Apollo Theatre 1983).[7]

Byrne has also designed record covers for Donovan, The Beatles, Gerry Rafferty, Billy Connolly, and The Humblebums. Singer-songwriter Rafferty's song Patrick is written about Byrne (the lyrics begin: "Patrick my primitive painter of art/You will always and ever be near to my heart"), and the pair co-wrote several songs together.

He illustrated Selected Stories by James Kelman, winner of the 1994 Booker Prize. Several of his paintings hang in The Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, including portraits of Robbie Coltrane, Billy Connolly, Tilda Swinton (the mother of two of his children), and a self-portrait.

Byrne continues to work industriously, painting from his studio in Edinburgh. He regularly exhibits new work at the Fine Art Society (London and Edinburgh), the Rendezvous Gallery (Aberdeen) and Brown's Art Gallery (Tain, Highlands).

References

  1. ↑ "This Charming Man". Leither Magazine. 19 April 2011. Retrieved 8 September 2015. We meet Mr Byrne – son of a pools winner (Zetters – £250) – in Leith's Café Truva, where he is chuckling over my repeating The New Statesman's assertion that he was 'Paisley's first postmodernist'
  2. ↑ Frodsham, Isobel (18 March 2017). "Tilda Swinton's ex-partner says he is a child of incestuous relationship". The Daily Mail. Retrieved 8 August 2017.
  3. ↑ Boshoff, Alison (14 February 2008). "Tilda Swinton: Her toyboy, elderly lover and an intriguing ménage a trois". The Daily Mail. Retrieved 8 August 2017.
  4. ↑ "John Byrne and 'Cheviot' set". National Library of Scotland. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
  5. ↑ Hampstead Theatre programme, 7 August 1979.
  6. ↑ "Byrne biography". Portal Gallery. Archived from the original on 23 December 2007. Retrieved 5 February 2010.
  7. ↑ Bush Theatre programme notes for Candy Kisses, May 1984.
  • John Byrne on IMDb
  • "John Byrne". National Galleries of Scotland.
  • "John Byrne". Paisley.org.uk.
  • Renton, Jennie (2008). "A Conversation with John Byrne". Textualities.net.
  • Clark, Colin. "Tutti Frutti: Interview with John Byrne". National Theatre of Scotland.
  • "John Byrne: Sitting Ducks". Rapidvisual Media.co.uk.
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