Highlights
In its first year Borderline toured ten productions across Ayrshire playing to audiences in venues ranging from converted Nissen huts to Victorian town halls. Within two years the company were selling-out at London’s Royal Court with Billy Connolly’s An Me Wi’ A Bad Leg Tae.
Throughout the 70’s and 80’s Borderline’s reputation for presenting entertaining accessible quality theatre grew with productions such as Connolly’s second play When Hair was Long And Time Was Short, winner of the company’s first Fringe First award, John Byrne’s Cara Coco, a ground breaking Dick Whittington starring Robbie Coltrane and a string of successes with Dario Fo plays including Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay, Female Parts and Trumpets & Raspberries, with Elaine C. Smith and Andy Gray (deemed by Fo himself as “the best production I have seen outside Italy”) Robbie Coltrane’s one-man tour de force in Mistero Buffo, which was subsequently screened on BBC2 in 1990 and Morag Fullarton’s Play it Again Tam featuring Gregor Fisher, which won the company its second Fringe First
The 90s brought more successes and awards: a third Fringe First in 1993 for A.L. Kennedy’s The Audition and the 1993 Evening News Capital Award for The Guid Sodjer Schweik, adapted from Jaroslav Hasek’s novel.
In 1994 Borderline toured Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple starring Craig Ferguson and Gerard Kelly which was an extremely successful production and the smash hit of Scottish theatre that year playing to almost 30,000 people over 52 performances.
In 1997 the company toured Martin Crimp’s version of Moliére’s The Misanthrope, which was hailed by critics as “A cracker of a production” and “the highlight of the year”.
Chris Dolan’s Sabina! followed this success touring Scotland and going to London in 1998.
This was followed in 1999 by Bernard Farrell’s Kevin’s Bed, which was a huge hit with audiences and in 2000 by The Angels’ Share by Chris Dolan and Dolan’s adaptation of Benhard Schlink’s novel The Reader.
In 2001, in addition to the great success of Marie Jones’s Women on the Verge of HRT, the company also co-produced Douglas Maxwell’s Our Bad Magnet with the Tron Theatre Company in association with the Scotsman Assembly. The show played two weeks at the Fringe before touring Scotland.
2002 was also a great year for Borderline. There was a second, equally successful tour of Women on the Verge of HRT and the company toured Scotland the Brave: An Incomplete History of Scotland Part 1 by Morag Fullarton to schools and venues.
2003 had two shows, Tally’s Blood which become a huge success with sell–out performances and was rapturously received by audiences all over Scotland and Mistero Buffo by Dario Fo which starred Andy Gray and was described by one reviewer as “Almost Godlike.”
In 2004 Borderline toured two of the most entertaining and widely seen plays of the year, Dead Funny by Terry Johnson and Good Things by Liz Lochhead.
2005 saw the company revive Stephen Greenhorn’s road-move for the stage, Passing Places- that proved a hit with audiences all over Scotland. This was followed by a new version of Dario Fo’s classic Accidental Death of an Anarchist, which the Times called a “rip-roaring night out!”
Two plays were toured in 2006; Spending Frank by Alistair Hewitt and Losing Louis by Anthony Mendes da Costa.
This success has continued to the present day with the production of DC Jackson's award winning trilogy The Wall, The Duckie and Te Chooky Brae.
