Peter Arnott had never read The Cone Gatherers when he was asked by Aberdeen Performing Arts to adapt Robin Jenkins' 1955 novel for their new touring production which opens at the city's His Majesty's Theatre next week. For a playwright who has already dramatised Neil M Gunn's The Silver Darlings for the same company, has penned a version of Robert Louis Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde, and whose original works such as The Breathing House are often steeped in Scotland's rich literary heritage, this is quite an admission. Such is Arnott's curiosity, however, that the prospect of diving in to Jenkins' World War Two set work about notions of good and bad on a Scottish country estate was one to relish. “I have to confess to my shame,” says Arnott with a mix of sheepishness and ebullience, “that not only did I not know The Cone Gatherers as a novel, but I didn't know Robin Jenkins as a writer either. Once I started reading his work, however, I ...
An archive of arts writing by Neil Cooper. Effete No Obstacle.