Alexander Reid (playwright)

Alexander Reid (1914–1982) was a Scottish playwright and poet,[1] "one of the neglected dramatists of the Scottish Renaissance".[2] His two best-known plays are The Lass wi' the Muckle Mou, based on the legend of Thomas the Rhymer, and The Warld's Wander, about Michael Scot, the famous magician.

Life

Alexander Reid was born on 19 August 1914 in Edinburgh, and educated at George Heriot's School. From 1929 to 1936 he worked as a journalist for the Edinburgh Evening News, before writing on Scottish history and literature for the SMT Magazine. A conscientious objector during World War II, he worked as a bookseller and accountant before becoming a full-time writer and broadcaster in 1948. The Lass wi' the Muckle Mou was first performed at the Glasgow Citizens' Theatre in November 1950. He died in Edinburgh on 1 July 1982.[2]

Reid edited the Saltire Society's quarterly Saltire Review from 1954 until 1960.[3]

Published works
  • Steps to a Viewpoint, 1947
  • Zoo-illogical Rhymes, 1947
  • The Milky Way, 1956
  • Kirk and Drama, 1957
  • The Lass wi' the Muckle Mou, 1958
  • The Warld's Wonder, 1958
  • Two Scots Plays, 1958
  • The Young Traveller in France, 1963

Other plays
  • The Wax Doll, 1956

References
  1. The Edinburgh Festivals: Culture and Society in Postwar Britain – Angela Bartie – 2013 p. 80 "In 1957 one prominent playwright and commentator on theatre, Alexander Reid, had charged that the Festival had got 'bogged down' and was in danger of collapsing once its novelty wore off, unless the organisers found a continuing purpose ."
  2. Trevor Royle (1984). "Reid, Alexander". Macmillan Companion to Scottish Literature. Macmillan International Higher Education. p. 246. ISBN 978-1-349-07587-4.
  3. Reid, Alexander (ed.), Saltire Review 1, The Saltire Society, Edinburgh, April 1954


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