NOT ABOUT HEROES had its première at the Edinburgh Festival in 1982. It won a Fringe First. It toured and came in to the King’s Head, was adapted for Yorkshire TV and BBC Radio 4 and was published by Faber, all in 1983. A new production at the Royal National Theatre in 1986 celebrated the centenary of Sassoon’s birth. A national tour took place the following year. In 1992, the author directed a revised text for the Citizens, Glasgow (a production afterwards seen in Shrewsbury as part of celebrations marking the centenary of Owen’s birth.)

 

A successful production by Dianne Wiest at the Williamstown Theatre Festival transferred to New York in 1985 for which Edward Herrmann and Dylan Baker both won OBIE awards. The 1987 Stratford Ontario production, with Nicholas Pennell and Henry Czernym, was revived the following year.

 

Earlier plays were produced by the Royal Lyceum Edinburgh Company: ALL AYRE & FIRE (Fringe First 1978), BILLY BUDD and JUNGLE BOOK. He directed his own version of UNCLE VANYA for a UK tour in 1990. For radio: an adaptation of Sassoon’s MEMOIRS OF A FOX-HUNTING MAN (BBC R4 1986) and IN THE SUMMER OF 1918 (BBC R4 1989 and Volute Productions, 1990).

 

Stephen MacDonald was a director, actor and novelist as well as a playwright. He died on 12 August 2009.