STUART PATERSON’S magical, funny children’s plays, first performed at many of Scotland’s best theatres, have been staged throughout the UK and around the world. They include Merlin The Magnificent, The Snow Queen, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Granny and the Gorilla, Hansel and Gretel (nominated for TMA Best Children’s Play of the Year), The Princess and the Goblin, The Sleeping Beauty, Puss In Boots, plus adaptations of Roald Dahl’s George’s Marvellous Medicine, J.M.Barrie’s Peter Pan, Michael Morpurgo’s Kensuke’s Kingdom and Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book which had a record-breaking national tour with Birmingham Stage.
More recently he has written the book for family musical Identical based on The Parent Trap by Erich Kästner and featuring songs by George Styles and Anthony Drewe which The Telegraph called “ingenious to the point of genius.”
Stuart has also written stories for three orchestral pieces for children by composer Savourna Stevenson: Misterstourworm; a version of Hansel & Gretel which has been recorded by the Orchestra of Scottish Opera and a version of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
Other work includes: King of the Fields for the Traverse Theatre; new versions of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya and The Seagull; In Traction for Scottish Youth Theatre (later televised by BBC); Thérèse Raquin for Communicado Theatre Company; an adaptation of James Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner for TAG Theatre Company; and Cars and Boys for Dundee Rep.
His films and television credits include the film Workhorses, which won the BBC Pharic Mclaren Award for best script and best production; short film Somebody’s Wee Nobody which won the Gold Award at the Chicago International Film Festival; and The Old Course. He is currently adapting Hjalmar Soderberg’s novel Doctor Glas, to be directed by Aisling Walsh, for Makar Productions.
Merlin the Magnificent
Treasure Island (Paterson)
