David Tennant, 'Merlin'...and 'Outlander"?
...where we learn what all these things have in common...
Hello, fair readers!
I’ve been diving into some heavy history here lately at A Tennantcy To Act - what with my posts on whether David did or didn’t do MacWizard Fae Oz in 1992 and with David in the RSAMD director's chair in the early 1990s with The Cake, Chamber Music, and Macburgers. So I thought I’d give you all a bit of a break and back off a little from all the history in favor of some interesting trivia.
Over the years, we’ve heard many stories about how David has been an inspiration to other actors. The latest one I can think of offhand is none other than fellow Royal Conservatoire of Scotland graduate Ncuti Gatwa, our new (and absolutely fabulous) 15th Doctor!
Gatwa’s said David was a “guiding therapist father figure” as well as the Doctor he grew up watching and who inspired him to want the role in the first place. In the 30 November 2022 issue of The List, Gatwa is quoted as saying
My drama teacher at Dunfermline High School was like, you really need to consider going to the Royal Conservatoire. And she gave me David Tennant’s Hamlet and said, “Watch this. This is an actor.” I was like, “Oh my God!”
On 7 July 2022, Gatwa - who graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2013 with a BA in Acting - was awarded an honorary doctorate alongside another of the RCS’s famous alumni, fellow Scot and Outlander star Sam Heughan. Heughan graduated from what was then the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) with a BA in Acting in 2003, a decade before Gatwa got his.
I find it a truly interesting twist of fate that both men obtained their doctorates together. They both attended the same school to earn their degrees, of course, but they also happen to be bound together by something else…or rather, someone else.
David Tennant!
I bet you’re sitting here wondering just how Sam Heughan is connected to David. Well, sit back and let me tell you how.
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The first few months of 1992 was a very busy time for a young David Tennant. He’d been hired to do three plays pretty much back-to-back. In early January he finished his first production at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh, Shinda The Magic Ape, and rushed headlong into rehearsal for the 7:84 production of Jump The Life To Come. After that play closed in mid-March, he went straight into rehearsals for his second production at the Royal Lyceum, a play by Tankred Dorst (and adapted by Tom McGrath) called Merlin. David was to play the role of King Arthur.
David has since said he received reviews for his performance as King Arthur that made him cry. On the Putting It Together podcast in December 2023, David had this to say about these reviews:
I did Merlin, a German expressionist thing by a man called Tankred Dorst. It was a German play that was nine hours long, and they split it into two and did it in two parts. I only got to do Part 1, but wasn't asked back to do Part 2 the following year - I was gutted. I did get the worst review of my professional career. I can't quite quote it, but I went to find it. It was something like, “David Tennant in Merlin as King Arthur lacks any loyalty, gravity”…a list of things I didn't have. And then lo and behold in part two, Rob Pickavance played me! He was meant to be older, I suppose, but I still took it very personally.
Merlin premiered on 3 April 1992 and closed on 18 April 1992, David’s 21st birthday.
He was to go on and do two more productions at the Royal Lyceum. In July of 1992, he played Simon Bliss in a production of Hay Fever opposite Edith MacArthur. He returned to the venue in 2005 to portray the iconic Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger, a play which won him a Critics' Awards for Theatre in Scotland (CATS).
I’ll share the rest of the story about Merlin in greater detail at a later date.
For now, we resume our tale!
In October 2015, the Royal Lyceum was celebrating its 50th Anniversary. As part of its celebrations, the theatre planned to publish 50 Years of the Royal Lyceum Theatre Company: 1965-2015, a limited-edition collection of archival photographs from the fifty years of its productions.
At least one photo of one of David’s productions at the Lyceum (Hay Fever) was included in the volume, which also featured quotes, reminiscences and essays from a number of Lyceum alumni.
One of those reminiscences was from Sam Heughan. He had this to say about the Lyceum:
As a teenager I was introduced to theatre at The Lyceum, each month attending free preview performances. The first being a production of Merlin. The passion, music and emotions I felt literally had me shaking in my seat and I was hooked. Still at school, I then did work experience in the Stage Management department. I got a crucial understanding of the work behind the scenes. The building had cast its spell on me and I then joined the Lyceum Youth Theatre whilst working as an usher in the evenings. The classes were an essential first step to understanding the craft where I met like-minded students and inspiring leaders. Evenings I spent ushering and watching every show, broadening my knowledge of the plays and actors at The Lyceum. I fell in love with the building, the secret backstage, the vast fly floor and the stunning auditorium. The Lyceum influenced my life, creating personal and professional relationships and ultimately paved the way for my current career. I feel lucky to have been one of many to pass through its doors...
Heughan’s recollections were but one of the quotes the Royal Lyceum shared on Twitter as it built up its social media campaign around its 50th Anniversary. When I read it, I was immediately struck by his mention of Merlin. Was it possible?
I hurried to Wikipedia to see how old Heughan would’ve been in April of 1992, and learned he would’ve been twelve. He’d said he was a “teenager”, so was twelve too early? Had the Lyceum done some other productions based on Merlin and the Arthurian legends - perhaps in pantos - in the years after David did his? And how on earth would I find out for sure?
By tweeting and asking, of course! And that’s precisely what I did. Following is my Twitter conversation with the Royal Lyceum…and with Sam Heughan himself! —
And there you have it. Confirmed!
So while David may have sobbed at his reviews as Arthur in Merlin, he did manage to make at least one young boy in the audience so excited and swept away at the power of theatre that he went on and made it his career, too…and went to the same drama school David did to learn his craft.
And, in an even more incredible twist, this young boy ended up becoming a household name playing the role of Jamie Fraser in Outlander, a character who author Diana Gabaldon named after none other than Jamie McCrimmon, the Second Doctor’s companion, portrayed in the television series by Frazer Hines.
Things really are sort of wibbly wobbly timey wimey, aren’t they?
How interesting! Initially, I was thinking of the BBC series 'Merlin' when I read the title. The actor who plays Merlin in that series was in a Doctor Who episode with David (Midnight) and reportedly watched David very closely to learn as much as he could from him! So cool to find out that David played in an adaptation of the 'Merlin' story himself, too.
Ok, i'm not (any more) into Diana Gabaldon - I read the books, but I know this actor and - well, it's a small world. The play by Tankred Dorst shows King Arthur as a marionette and weak character (not a very common take), so this critic is a good example why critics are always subjective.