James Brining has had quite a couple of weeks. First up, the artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh opened his first show since he took up office six months ago after picking up the baton from David Greig. Brining’s eloquent, witty and really rather lovely production of Chekhov’s play, The Seagull, stars Caroline Quentin as Arkadina, an actress of a certain age who holds court in the midst of a changing society as her would-be playwright son explores the shock of the new.
While Brining’s production was in rehearsals, the Lyceum announced Lyndsey Jackson as new Executive Director, with Brining becoming the theatre’s sole Chief Executive following the departure of Mike Griffiths. Jackson will take up her post in January after departing her role as deputy chief executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society. Her appointment at the Lyceum comes following five new board members taking up post earlier this year.
On the artistic side, this week sees the announcement of a brand new Lyceum show by Gary McNair, who brings Ron Ferguson’s Scottish football based book, Black Diamonds and the Blue Brazil, to the stage. With Deacon Blue’s Ricky Ross providing a live score, Brining will direct.
Just announced as well is what looks set to be a headline grabbing live in-conversation with Outlander star and former Lyceum Youth Theatre member, Sam Heughan. Actress and podcaster Nicola Roy will host the event with Heughan in January. Scheduled alongside an already announced visit by Jodie Comer in an already sold out run of Suzie Miller’s play, Prima Facie and David Greig’s new stage musical of hit Netflix drama, One Day, set partly in Edinburgh, Brining has clearly hit the ground running.
“Everything is a work in progress,” he says, sat in the Lyceum’s Wyndham Bar several days after The Seagull has opened, “I guess that’s what Chekhov’s play is about on one level, and it’s the same programming a theatre. I wanted to direct a show early on, because I think it’s a way to understand how the theatre works, and also to understand how audiences work. That felt important.
“One of the main reasons I wanted to come to the Lyceum,” Brining continues, “is that it is a great drama house that gives me the opportunity to do a play like The Seagull, which stretches me as a director, stretches the creative team, and, most importantly in this instance, gives Scottish actors the opportunity to stretch themselves in great roles of real complexity. Those opportunities come along more and more rarely, and I think a theatre’s repertoire should include opportunities for audiences to see work like this, but also for artists to make work that feels contemporary, but is from the past.”
As an opening statement for Brining’s tenure, The Seagull is ideal.
“It’s a play about art and about theatre, and about the kind of theatre we want to make, the theatre we used to make, and the theatre we might imagine for the future,” he says. “But also it’s a play about humanity, love and great universal themes.”
Brining’s arrival on Grindlay Street sees him return to Scotland after twelve years at the helm of Leeds Playhouse. This followed nine years as artistic director of Dundee Rep, where he oversaw hit productions of musicals such as Sweeney Todd, and directed the first production of Stephen Greenhorn’s Proclaimers soundtracked musical, Sunshine in Leith, which he commissioned.
Brining took this spirit with him to Leeds, where, making a prodigal’s return to his home town, he commissioned and produced 65 new plays, as well as overseeing a multi million pound refurbishment and rebrand of the theatre. High profile shows included My Fair Lady, The Crucible, and UK tours of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – The Musical, and an acclaimed in-the-round production of OLIVER!
Beyond the big hitters, Leeds Playhouse became the first theatre in the world to become a theatre of sanctuary, working closely with the refugee and asylum seeking community. Brining also helped pioneer relaxed and dementia friendly performances that have become an industry standard.
The importance of such community-based initiatives has been key to Brining’s work since he first arrived in Scotland in 1997 to run TAG (Theatre About Glasgow), the Citizens Theatre’s theatre in education company. It was here he stumbled on something that signified where his entire approach to theatre began while reading a children’s play about an ecological disaster in Japan called Drink the Mercury.
“As I was reading it, I had a very strange sensation of thinking that I knew it from somewhere,” Brining recalls. “I turned to the front of the play, and it said it was first performed in Leeds in 1974. I had seen this play as a five-year-old at primary school. That moment showed how something like that stays with you, affects you, and touches you.”
Brining is keen to bring something similar to the Lyceum.
“Community and education work have always been something I've been passionate about. I think the tradition of that at the Lyceum is a good one, both in terms of youth theatre, and a development into work with over 60s, which I think is really, really valuable.
“I’m keen to continue that work, but also to develop and grow it. Edinburgh is a city that has social challenges that maybe aren't as obvious as in other cities. We have a social function as well as an artistic function, and I'm interested in finding out what our social function is, focusing that, and resourcing it alongside putting great work on the stage.”
Brining’s long term ambitions for his new artistic home aim to be all encompassing in this way.
“I'd like the Lyceum to be consistently producing work which is notable, not just on Scottish stages, but also national and international ones,” he says. “I'd love us to make this building more accessible and more visible, and I'd love to get rid of the dustbin lorries outside, turn the space into an urban park, and join up with the rest of this cultural quarter.
“We're right in the shadow of a castle,” he observes. “It's an extraordinary location. People come from all over the world to this part of Scotland, and we're right in the heart of it. I'd love us to do more shows, employ more artists, get bigger audiences, be more diverse, work on some of the other stages in Edinburgh and across Scotland…
“Brining pauses to reflect on the enormity of all this. “There's so much potential,” he says. “The only limit is the limit of our imaginations.”
The Seagull ran at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh until November 1. An Evening With… Sam Heughan, January 27 2026. Black Diamonds and the Blue Brazil, May 8-23 2026. These and all other Lyceum productions can be booked here -
https://lyceum.org.uk/whats-on
The Herald, November 8th 2025
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