Marilyn Elsie Imrie (20 November 1947 – 21 August 2020) was a Scottish theatre and radio drama director and producer. She was joint-chair of the board of Stellar Quines Theatre Company and a trustee of the new writing theatre company Paines Plough.Stellar Quines Theatre Company – Marilyn Imrie Biography
Career Marilyn Imrie worked in drama and broadcasting in Scotland and England for over thirty years as a producer and director, for the BBC, ITV and the independent companies Absolutely Productions, Bona Broadcasting, CBL, CIM, Kindle Entertainment and Sweet Talk. She was a drama producer in radio and television in BBC Scotland for twelve years before moving to London to devise and launch the BBC Radio 4 soap Citizens in 1987, then drama commissioning editor for BBC Radio 4 until 1999.
Imrie was a script executive for BBC Scotland Television drama, a drama development executive for three major independent companies and a producer and director in radio drama and in the theatre. She was awarded Sony, TRIC and Talkies awards for her radio production work, the Samuel Beckett Award for television drama for Paris (BBC Scotland for BBC 2) and an RTS Award for her work on the animation series Big & Small, starring Lenny Henry and Imelda Staunton.
Her BBC Radio work included twenty Rumpole plays, twenty-three of The Stanley Baxter Playhouse, eight Two Pipe Problems, four series of Baggage, and the Classic Serials: My Last Duchess, The Book of Love, Great Expectations, Lady Chatterley's Lover, The Card, Clarissa, The Lost World and The Heat of the Day. Theatre work includes: Overdue South by Jules Horne for the Traverse Theatre/BBC Scotland, Lie Down Comic by John Mortimer, The Bones Boys by Colin MacDonald for Òran Mór, Elsie and Mairi Go To War by Diane Atkinson, Blow Me Beautiful by Gabriel Quigley and Vicki Liddelle, Daphnis and Chloe adapted by Hattie Naylor for Òran Mór, Mortimer's Miscellany for the Henley Festival, and Prunella Scales and Edward Fox in their theatre entertainment English Eccentrics.
Personal life Daughter of John Campbell Imrie, of Redroofs, Markinch, Fife, Scotland,Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 106th edition, vol. 2, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1999, p. 2476 Marilyn Imrie married twice, the first (to actor Kenny Ireland) ending in divorce, the second in 1985 to the novelist and film-maker James Runcie, the son of Robert Runcie who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1980 to 1991."James Runcie interview: Canterbury tales" – The Scotsman, 25 March 2009 Imrie had two daughters: Rosie Kellagher is a freelance theatre director who won an Arches Award for Directors in 2007,New voices, new directions and no resting on their laurels – Neil Cooper, Herald Scotland, 3 April 2007 and directed Small Blue Thing,BBC – BBC Radio Scotland – Small Blue Thing Mother Father SonBBC – BBC Radio Scotland – Mother Father Son and Macmillan's Marvellous Motion Machine for radio; and Charlotte Runcie, a writer and poet.Charlotte Runcie web site The family lived in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Marilyn Imrie died at home in Edinburgh on 21 August 2020 from motor neurone disease.
Radio plays
Radio Plays Directed or Produced by Marilyn Imrie Date first broadcast Play Author Cast SynopsisAwards StationSeries 20 October 1989(Recorded on 28 September 1989) Pratt's Fall Stewart Parker Michael Williams, John Moffatt, Kerry Shale, James Greene, David King, Isla Blair, Dermot Crowley, Maurice Roëves, Susan Wooldridge If you were an attractive, strong-minded female academic, and a Glaswegian ex-monk sporting a small gold earring offered you a map proving that the Irish discovered America in the 9th Century, would you fall for it? BBC Radio 3 13 March 1990 Fair Kirsten Kaj Nissen translated by Julian Garner Gerda Stevenson Young Kirsten, the King's sister, heavy with child, is destined to dance through the night with 12 men. None of them can weary her, but the 13th, the King, ends the dance forever.The original Danish version of this play won the Prix Futura Berlin 1989. BBC Radio 3 4 May 1990 – 8 June 1990(Recorded on 19 March 1990 – 2 April 1990) Far from the Madding CrowdBBC – Far from the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy dramatised by Nick McCarty Janet Maw, Hetty Baynes, James Greene, Michael Kilgarriff, Stephen Garlick, Roger Hammond, David Burke, Tim McInnerny Thomas Hardy's Wessex tragedy sees the emancipated Bathsheba Everdene inherit her father's farm, and change the lives of 3 men. BBC Radio 4 9 May 1990(Recorded on 17 January 1990) Bright as a Light, Simple as a Ring Catherine Czerkawska Emma Bunton, Tom Wilkinson, Barbara Atkinson, Kelda Holmes Joanna replies to Raoul, imprisoned in Chile. He never replies – but what will happen when he is released? BBC Radio 4 11 June 1990 Blood and Ice Liz Lochhead Jack Klaff, Tilly Vosburgh, Stella Gonet, Gerda Stevenson, Stephen Boxer In 1816 Mary Wollstonecraft eloped with her lover Percy Shelley to the shores of Lake Geneva into a villa close to Lord Byron, where she created Frankenstein. BBC Radio 4 The Monday Play 9 July 1990(Recorded on 1 May 1990) Cloud Cuckoo Land Catherine Czerkawska Brian Miller, Stephen Tompkinson, Ben Onwukwe, Burt Kwouk Japanese girl Mitsuko falls in love with British boy Leon. In colour, race and custom, they are worlds apart. BBC Radio 4 The Monday Play 13 August 1991(Recorded on 15 May 1991) Purgatory Marcy Kahan Stuart Milligan, Auriol Smith, Miriam Karlin, Bill Paterson Three very different people meet in purgatory and discover that the hereafter isn't quite what they imagined. BBC Radio 3 26 November 1992 – 31 December 1992 Little WomenBBC – Little Women Louisa M Alcott dramatised by Marcy Kahan Jemma Redgrave, Gayle Hunnicutt, Kara Zediker Louisa M Alcott's endearing novel of four sisters growing up in 19th century New England. The girls are each given some money for Christmas and are anxious to spend it. BBC Radio 4 11 February 1993 – 18 March 1993 Good WivesBBC – Good Wives"RADIO / The tides of the Marches: Georgina Brown reports on an adaptation for radio of Louisa May Alcott's classic 'Good Wives'", The Independent, 10 February 1993. Louisa M Alcott dramatised by Marcy Kahan Jemma Redgrave, Gayle Hunnicutt, Martin Jarvis Louisa May Alcott's classic sequel to Little Women. BBC Radio 4 29 December 1997 A Christmas Card Paul Theroux dramatised by Nick Warburton Michael Maloney A snowbound family is given a Christmas card by a mysterious old man. The card is both a map and a talisman which illuminates the meaning of Christmas for the children and their parents. BBC Radio 4 21 February 1998 Beatrix Beatrix Potter adapted by Patrick Garland and Judy TaylorMusic composed by Carl Davis Patricia RoutledgeMusic performed by Osian Ellis and Philippa Davies The real-life story of the much-loved children's writer Beatrix Potter. BBC Radio 4 27 April 1998 – 1 May 1998 Postcards: "Sunblock" Ginnie Hole Teresa Gallagher, Russell Boulter Chalk-and-cheese sisters Kirstie and Zo spend a week at the Porthant Bay Hotel, tracing their family roots and reconciling their considerable differences. BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour DramaBBC – Woman's Hour Drama 6 July 1998 – 10 July 1998 "What's Inside a Girl?" Mike Walker based on the original story by Michele Hanson Paola Dionisotti, Edna Doré, Luisa Bradshaw-White Gillian and her friends tackle middle age head-on – with varying degrees of damage – as they wrestle with VPL and HRT. BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Drama 26 January 1999 – 2 March 1999 "Coming Alive" Jim Eldridge Karl Howman, Phyllis Logan An ex-con gets a chance to prove himself and find his feet again by reviving a run-down community centre with assistance from a social worker who has a warm heart and an unhappy past. BBC Radio 4 16 May 1999 "The Perfect Days" Liz Lochhead Siobhan Redmond, Vincent Friell, Enzo Cilenti A sharp and poignant comedy about how romantic love, mother love and friendship, affect one woman as she goes about trying to get what she really wants. BBC Radio 4 12 June 1999 "The Summer of a Dormouse" John Mortimer Paul Scofield, Alex Jennings, Imelda Staunton, Gemma Jones An elderly man stands in the darkening garden of a vicarage by the sea and looks back on a life which seems to have passed as swiftly as Lord Byron's dormouse summer. BBC Radio 4 Saturday PlayBBC – Saturday Play 25 October 1999 – 3 December 1999 Nicholas NicklebyDirected by Marilyn Imrie and Jeremy MortimerBBC – Woman's Hour Drama – Nicholas Nickleby Charles Dickens dramatised by Mike Walker, Georgia Pritchett Oliver Milburn, Alex Jennings, Ken Campbell, Anna Massey, Richard Johnson, Tom Baker, David Bamber The story is of Nicholas's triumph against adversity: he defeats his wicked Uncle Ralph and the loathsome Squeers to carve out a life for himself, his family and the pitiful boy, Smike. Eventually he wins the hand of a beautiful girl, Madeline Bray. BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Drama 18 December 1999 The Children of Green Knowe Lucy M Boston dramatised by Brian Sibley Patricia Routledge The story of Tolly, who has been sent to spend his Christmas holidays with his great-grandmother in an old fenland manor house which is full of secrets, friendly ghosts and children from another time. As Christmas approaches Tolly draws nearer to their world, and magically, is able to become part of it. BBC Radio 4 Saturday Play 19 January 2000 Stay!BBC – Afternoon Play – Stay! Georgia Pritchett Sophie Thompson, Duncan Preston, Sheridan Smith Lonely Lizzie runs a dog kennels. Her teenage daughter is aiming for sainthood. Tim the kennels handyman strives daily to avoid the small calamities that seem to seek him out. But romance is in the air when the new doctor arrives... BBC Radio 4 Afternoon PlayBBC – Afternoon Play 9 April 2000 – 23 April 2000 Cousin Bette, The Poor Relation Honoré de Balzac dramatised by James Friel Alison Steadman, Leslie Phillips Paris, 1838. The faithless Baron Hulot is in financial difficulties.