Maureen Beattie in Meet Jan Black

The Guardian, 2 April 2021

What will audiences want after the pandemic? Will it be daft comedies by Noël Coward? Or will they have an appetite for Pulitzer-winning cancer dramas such as Margaret Edson’s Wit? That’s the dilemma faced by Jan Black in Johnny McKnight’s warm-hearted new play. She and her am-dram company have been given the go-ahead for a November run at Ayr’s Gaiety theatre and, with a singing ban ruling out a musical, they must predict the public mood by choosing just the right popular classic.

She has her eye on Blithe Spirit; her younger colleagues in the Gaiety Whirlers fancy something edgier. [READ MORE]

By Mark Fisher

MARK FISHER is a freelance theatre critic and feature writer based in Edinburgh and has written about theatre in Scotland since the late-1980s. He is a theatre critic for The Guardian, a former editor of The List magazine and a frequent contributor to the Scotsman and other publications. He is the co-editor of the play anthology Made in Scotland (1995), and the author of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide (2012) and How to Write About Theatre (2015) – all Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. He is also the editor of The XTC Bumper Book of Fun for Boys and Girls and What Do You Call That Noise? An XTC Discovery Book (both Mark Fisher Ltd).