From Forfar to film sets, theatre and back again

Nearly 20 years after leaving school, he was back directing scenes for a US TV feature film, Murder in the Highland Manor, surrounded by former teachers, local drama pupils, members of his own family and a community that had unknowingly helped shape his career.

The film has since been broadcast across the United States on Lifetime, bringing Angus and Perthshire locations to an international audience.

Yet for Ryan, who has travelled to more than 50 countries working across film, television and theatre, the most rewarding part wasn’t the international release. It was coming home.

“I’ve filmed in lots of places around the world and I’ve been lucky enough to travel extensively through work, but I always come back to Angus and Perthshire,” he said. “Some of my favourite locations anywhere in the world are here. And obviously, the people.”

This latest production included locations including Forfar Academy, Glen Clova Hotel, Persie House and Easter Rattray Estate, with support from Angus Council and local communities helping make the project possible.

It was not simply a case of using the area as a backdrop. Local people were involved, local knowledge shaped the shoot and the production became part of the community for the time it was there.

Former guidance teachers Bruce Martin and Kas Mohammad became part of the production, with Bruce even starring as a cop, while local pupils from the school’s drama department joined the film as American students alongside members of Ryan’s own family.

The experience brought together the past and present in a way Ryan had not expected.

His journey towards a career in the arts began at 16 years old, working with Angus Council and Young Scot, creating video content after being recruited through a summer school activity, before progressing into theatre, film and television.

What began with early editing work and local creative opportunities, has grown into a career spanning feature films, theatre productions, live events, national tours and international distribution.

And now that path has led to another unexpected full-circle moment.

This autumn, Ryan is producing a new national tour of Tony Roper’s The Steamie alongside fellow producer and actress Louise McCarthy, opening in Dundee Rep Theatre in August before touring Scotland.

For Scottish audiences, Louise is instantly recognisable from Scot Squad, Only an Excuse? and Wild Rose, and most recently from The High Life tour, which toured Scotland with creators Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson.

For Ryan, there is another Alan Cumming connection sitting quietly in the background of his own story.

His late grandparents were friends with Alan’s mother, Mary, who would return home with stories of his current ventures and Hollywood stories.

Long before Ryan worked professionally in the industry, his granny would cut newspaper articles about Alan from magazines and newspapers and pass them on.

“She’d save everything she would find,” he says. “This was back during GoldenEye, Spy Kids and all those years when Alan’s career was exploding internationally. She understood something important. Seeing someone from a similar place achieve something extraordinary makes the impossible feel a little more possible.”

It is a lesson that stayed with him.

“Never underestimate local role models,” he said. “Sometimes seeing somebody else’s success is enough to keep you going during difficult periods. I recall meeting practitioners and seeing behind the scenes on a theatre show or some visiting filming crew, and it kept me itching to find out how it all works.

“That all goes back to the Jurassic Park annual that showed behind the scenes of the dinosaurs. I’ve not got to that budget yet, but I’m not stopping.”

That sense of inspiration, passed from one generation to the next, is also at the heart of The Steamie tour.

Tony Roper has confirmed this will be his final outing directing the play he first brought to audiences almost four decades ago in 1987.

Set in a 1950s Glasgow washhouse on Hogmanay, The Steamie follows Magrit, Dolly, Doreen and Mrs Culfeathers as they gather for the final wash of the year, sharing stories, secrets, songs, laughter and disappointments.

It is a play filled with patter, pride and humour, but also one built on something more enduring: the need for people to be together. And for Ryan, that is why the play still matters.

“What makes The Steamie special is that, at its heart, it is just people talking,” he said. “People sharing stories, laughing, remembering, helping each other through things. That sounds simple, but it is actually everything.

“The play is about connection. It is set in the 1950s, but it could be now. The details of life change, but people still want the same things. We want to be seen. We want to be heard. We want to feel that someone else understands us. It’s connection.”

For Ryan, the play also mirrors much of his own story.

His first professional experiences in theatre included working on The Steamie at Perth Theatre.

Years later, he was involved in the large-scale Hydro production, directing the live camera version at the SSE Hydro and designing the audiovisual elements for the show.

Now, after first encountering the production as a young person beginning his career, he is producing the official national tour.

“It’s funny looking back,” he said. “One of my first jobs in theatre was on The Steamie. Then years later I was directing the live camera version at the Hydro and designing the AV. Now I’m producing the tour.

“The play has appeared at different stages of my career, and each time my role has changed. Working with Tony is always a joy and filled with a legacy of stories.”

The forthcoming tour brings together several generations of Scottish talent. Alongside Louise McCarthy, the cast includes Olivier Award-winning Dundee and Perth-based actress Lesley Mackie, whose appearance is being described as a comeback after largely retiring from performing.

Her involvement came about in a suitably personal way. Ryan had worked with her during his early years at Perth Theatre and reached out through Facebook simply to reconnect after sharing a fun anecdote between her and Tony Roper from their youth.

“I genuinely thought we were just catching up,” he said. “The next thing I knew, Lesley was joining the cast and suddenly I’d accidentally helped bring an Olivier Award winner out of retirement.”

For him, the story is another example of how Scottish theatre careers are rarely linear and rarely built alone. They are built through relationships, memory, chance encounters and people continuing to show up for one another years later.

“That is the thing I keep coming back to,” he said. “No one succeeds alone. There are teachers, mentors, colleagues, family members and friends behind every opportunity.

“Looking back, that’s the real story. The film, the tour, the productions, they are all connected by people who opened doors or encouraged someone else to keep going.”

It is also part of the ethos behind the new Steamie tour.

For many audiences, The Steamie is a play associated with mothers, grannies, aunties and family memories.

Some remember seeing it for the first time decades ago or watching it on STV at Hogmanay. Others know it from stories passed down through families.

Ryan and Louise want this new tour to honour that history while also opening the play up to younger audiences.

“Part of our responsibility with The Steamie is passing it on,” he said. “For a lot of people, this is a play connected to their grannies, aunties or mums. But now it can be something they share with their nieces, nephews, children and grandchildren.

“And it isn’t just a play for women. It speaks to audiences across time. It speaks to anyone who understands family, work, friendship, disappointment, humour and carrying on.

“Scotland at Hogmanay offers a hand of friendship. It's no accident the play takes place at that time of year.”

In an age increasingly shaped by digital life and artificial intelligence, Dewar believes theatre has become more important, not less.

“AI exists now and it is changing the world quickly,” he said. “But what it can’t replace is people being together. We will always find a way to be connected in person. Theatre does that tenfold.

“It puts people in a room together. You laugh together, you listen together, you feel something together. That is incredibly powerful that you can’t ask from generative AI.”The tour itself will begin in Dundee before travelling to Ayr, Stirling, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Pitlochry, Dunfermline and Glasgow.

It is a journey through Scotland, but also through communities who have held this play close for almost 40 years, many venues seen on the original wildcat tour schedule back in 1987.

And perhaps that is why, despite international broadcasts, 56 countries, film premieres and national tours, the story always seems to return to the same place.

Back to Scotland. Back to Angus. Back to Perthshire.

Back to the communities, teachers, theatres, family and local role models that helped make everything else possible. Hopefully continuing to encourage new generations to follow their creative paths.

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