The Collie's Shed: Play going on tour in East Lothian

The Collie’s Shed took to the stage at the world-famous festival two years ago and returned for last year’s event.

Now Shelley Middler, who spent two years piecing together the play, which was inspired by her grandfather’s stories, is getting ready to take it on tour, including four stops in East Lothian.

Tomorrow (Friday), the first night of the eight-date tour takes place in Edinburgh, before it moves on to St Andrews, Kirkcaldy and Cumbernauld.

Twenty-nine-year-old Shelley, who works as a receptionist at the Aubigny Sports Centre in Haddington, said: “Taking the show to the Edinburgh Fringe was a no-brainer.

Shelley Middler

“I’ve spent many years coming to the festival with my family.

“It’s a great place to see theatre, music and comedy that you would never get to see otherwise but it also has a rich programme of Scottish artists.

“Taking The Collie’s Shed to the Fringe was a huge learning experience for me as a theatre maker – I was doing everything from marketing, producing, casting, directing – you name it, I was doing it.

“I was blown away by the response from both audiences and critics alike.

“Hearing how people purposefully made the journey to see this show because of their own personal ties to the story, or former miners coming to see their story on stage for the first time, it was an incredibly overwhelming response of support and praise.

“Bringing the show back was mainly due to the huge response we received the previous year.

“It was clear there was a hunger for this kind of story.

“As a working-class writer, it was always important to me for this show to reach the people it was inspired by, so I felt it only right for us to return and, again, the response was unbelievable.

“From flyering on the street to being stopped after the show, people were determined to tell us how this story connected to them.

“It was from there that I decided to put the feelers out for a tour.

“And here we are a year later, and 40 years on from the strikes themselves – it feels pretty incredible to look back at what we have achieved.”

The run at last year’s Festival Fringe again received great critical acclaim from both reviewers and audiences, achieving four and five-star reviews.

The production was chosen as a ‘Pick of the Fringe’ by The National, and a ‘Top Pick’ in Gilded Balloon’s Patter Hoose venue by Playbill.

Now it is heading out on the road.

On May 29, The Collie’s Shed takes to the stage at Musselburgh’s Loretto Theatre before making the short trip to Tranent’s The Fraser Centre the following night.

May ends with a performance at Prestonpans Community Centre before the curtain comes down at Haddington Corn Exchange.

Former Ross High School pupil Shelley, who grew up in Macmerry and now lives in East Saltoun, said: “I first began writing The Collie’s Shed in lockdown as a means to help me stay creative.

“It was the first full-length play I had ever written independently outwith a writing group, and it really felt like the best challenge for me as a writer.

“The inspiration for the story came from hearing my papa’s stories of his time at Macmerry Men’s Shed.

“Hearing the characters and the things they would get up to always used to leave me with a smile on my face.

“I tied this with the rich mining history of my home county, East Lothian, and thus The Collie’s Shed was created.”

Go to linktr.ee/thecolliesshed for tickets.