Tom McGrath (23 October 1940 – 29 April 2009) was a Scottish playwright and jazz pianist.

Career

McGrath was born in

Rutherglen Rutherglen (; , ) is a town in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, immediately south-east of the city of Glasgow, from its centre and directly south of the River Clyde. Having previously existed as a separate Lanarkshire burgh, in 1975 Rutherglen lo ...

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

.Local and family history: Rutherglen - history in the making
South Lanarkshire Council During the mid 1960s he was associated with the emerging

UK underground The British counter-culture or underground scene developed during the mid-1960s, and was linked to the hippie subculture of the United States. Its primary focus was around Ladbroke Grove and Notting Hill in London. It generated its own magazin ...

culture, participating in

Alexander Trocchi Alexander Whitelaw Robertson Trocchi ( ; 30 July 1925 – 15 April 1984) was a Scottish novelist. Early life and career Trocchi was born in Glasgow to Alfred (formerly Alfredo) Trocchi, a music-hall performer of Italian parentage, and Annie ...

's ''Project Sigma'', working as features editor of Peace News, and becoming founding editor of the

International Times ''International Times'' (''it'' or ''IT'') is the name of various Underground press, underground newspapers, with the original title founded in London in 1966 and running until October 1973. Editors included John Hopkins (p ...

. During the early 1970s he worked with Billy Connolly on ''The Great Northern Welly-Boot Show''. From 1974-77 he was director of the Third Eye Centre (named after the influence of Sri Chinmoy), an arts centre on

Sauchiehall Street Sauchiehall Street () is one of the main shopping streets in the Glasgow city centre, city centre of Glasgow, Scotland, along with Buchanan Street and Argyle Street, Glasgow, Argyle Street. Although commonly associated with the city centre, Sau ...

in Glasgow. During this time, he wrote the popular play ''

Laurel and Hardy Laurel and Hardy were a British-American double act, comedy duo during the early Classical Hollywood cinema, Classical Hollywood era of American cinema, consisting of Englishman Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and American Oliver Hardy (1892–1957) ...

''. In 1977 he worked with Jimmy Boyle (then recently released from the Special Unit at Barlinnie jail) on the play ''The Hardman''. McGrath's autobiographical 1979 play '' The Innocent'' relates his drug use and addiction during the 1960s. His play ''Animal'', an excursion into the anthropoid substructure of society, featured in the programme of the

Edinburgh International Festival The Edinburgh International Festival is an annual arts festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, spread over the final three weeks in August. Notable figures from the international world of music (especially european classical music, classical music) and ...

in 1980 and was staged again by the Scottish Theatre Company in 1981.Stevenson, Randall (1981), ''Scottish Theatre Company: First Days, First Nights'', in Murray, Glen (ed.), ''Cencrastus'' No. 7, Winter 1981 - 82, pp. 10 - 13 In 1986 he wrote the script for a short film commissioned by COSLA and produced by Glasgow Film and Video Workshop. The film was written as a comedy-drama and toured Scotland on a bus after being shown at the

Edinburgh Film Festival The Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), established in 1947, is the world's oldest continually running film festival. EIFF presents both UK and international films (all titles are World, international, European or UK Premieres), in al ...

References

External links

Profile
scotlandonsunday.Scotsman.com, April 2005; retrieved 30 August 2017.
Who Was Tom McGrath?
Edinburgh Film Festival, April 2017; retrieved 22 April 2020. 1940 births 2009 deaths Musicians from Glasgow Scottish jazz pianists 20th-century Scottish dramatists and playwrights 20th-century British pianists 20th-century Scottish musicians People from Rutherglen {{Scotland-writer-stub