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Iain McClure – ChildMinder

Ghosts are everywhere in ChildMinder, Ian McClure’s new play which opens at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh this month as part of a short three-date tour. Kolbrún Björt Sigfúsdóttir’sproduction of McClure’s play sees Cal MacAninch play Joseph Croan, a fifty-something child psychiatrist returning home from New York to Edinburgh. Here, Joseph’s luxury flat turns out to be the site of the former hospital room where he once assessed a thirteen-year-old boy in what became a life changing moment for both of them. With the boy’s spirit remaining, Joseph becomes haunted on every level.

 

Given that McClure is himself a consultant child psychiatrist who once worked in Edinburgh’s former Royal Infirmary where the residential Quartermile development now stands, all this sounds pretty close to home.

 

“I think one of the big themes of my career has been the awareness of the vulnerability of young boys and young men in society, and what gets branded now as this idea of toxic masculinity,” McClure says. “I don't really like the phrase, but I can understand how it's come about. What goes wrong for boys is something I'm very interested in. I've been in situations that are very stressful assessing children, because you don't want to get it wrong. Out of that I’ve written a play where big events from the past come back to haunt the psychiatrist.’ 

 

While ChildMinder reflects how psychiatrists can be haunted by their patients on a metaphorical level, McClure’s own beliefs take this idea to something more literal.

 

“I do believe in ghosts,’ he says. “I've had experiences where I've encountered a ghost or something. Not many, but I have. Some people think it's nonsense, but I don't. And I think hospitals are places which have a high potential to be haunted, particularly older hospitals, because there is such intensity taking place on a daily basis in these places.’ 

 

McClure’s involvement in theatre dates back to his student days at Cambridge University. His first professionally produced work, Paint Your Well, starred David Tennant in a BBC Radio 4 production. More radio and stage plays followed, with ChildMinder dating back to 2015, when it reached the top twenty of the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting. A new piece, The Garden of Love, is currently being developed with former Tron Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company artistic director, Michael Boyd. In the meantime, ChildMinder remains something of a labour of love.

 

“I wanted to write a play about a child,’ McClure says. “I wanted to write a play about a child psychiatrist. I wanted to write a play about ghosts. People will say, oh, this is a play about child psychiatry, because you're a child psychiatrist, but fundamentally, it's actually a story about a boy searching for his lost mother.’  

 

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, 8-10 June; Beacon Arts, Greenock, 14-15 June; Byre Theatre, St Andrews, 28-29 June.


The List, June 2023

 

ends

 

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