Robert Kemp

Robert Kemp (1908 – 1967) was a Scottish playwright. Along with Tom Fleming and Lennox Milne, he was a founder of the Edinburgh Gateway Company (1953–1965).

Biography He was born in 1908, at Longhope in Orkney, where his father was the minister. Educated at Robert Gordon's College and the University of Aberdeen, he lived in London and then in Edinburgh (in Warriston Crescent). Before turning to drama, he trained as a journalist with The Guardian. From the time he adapted Molière's L'Ecole des Femmes for the Scottish stage in 1947 he sought to promote a distinctly national drama, often employing Scots dialogue. His A Trump for Jericho, a comedy set in the New Town of Edinburgh at the time of the Disruption in 1843 was first performed by the Scottish National Players in 1947. He also wrote plays for the Glasgow Citizens and Dundee Repertory Theatre. In 1948, working with Tyrone Guthrie, he staged a revival of Scotland's first Scottish play, David Lyndsay's Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis and, also in 1948, he coined the phrase "Edinburgh Festival Fringe". His adaptation of Allan Ramsay's The Gentle Shepherd was staged at the Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland in 1949. Brown, Son & Ferguson Ltd. (1985) The Perfect Gent (1962) The Asset (play) Master John Knox, St. Andrew Press (1960) Venom for Two, Brown, Son & Ferguson Ltd. (1985)

Other plays Seven Bottles for the Maestro (1945) Conspirators (1955) Marigold (1955), a musical play, with music by Cedric Thorpe Davie The Man Among the Roses (1956), a verse play based on the ballad of Tam Lin The Daft Days (1957), adapted from the novel by Neil Munro Rob Roy (1960), adapted from the novel by Sir Walter Scott