A Play, a Pie, a Pint … and a well-deserved award

They were launched eight years ago at a popular Glasgow arts venue and eaterie as an off-beat experiment in lunch-hour theatre.

More than 250 plays later, David MacLennan, founder of A Play, a Pie and a Pint at Oran Mor, has won a top award for “outstanding achievement in Scottish theatre”.

Actors Robbie Coltrane, Elaine C Smith, and Blyth Duff have been among the performers in a project that earned the backing of the National Theatre of Scotland.

The format has successfully expanded to the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh and built connections across the UK and Europe for Scottish theatre.

A Play, a Pie and a Pint has won the CATS (Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland) Whiskers Award, which will be presented by actor Alan Cumming at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow on Sunday.

Joyce McMillan, co-convener of the CATS awards, said: “Since 2004, David MacLennan and A Play, a Pie and a Pint have transformed the Scottish theatre scene with their brilliant invention.”

The lunchtime format allowed them “in complete freedom, and without direct public subsidy, to present more than 30 new short plays each year, by a dazzling range of writers from Scotland and across the world”, she said. It had created a “whole new dimension of opportunity” for young and established writers.

David MacLennan said: “I am very touched by this award and recognise that it is really being given to the whole theatrical community in Scotland.”