'Lost' JM Barrie play returns to stage at Dumfries Academy

JM Barrie believed the script to his play had been destroyed

A play by Peter Pan author JM Barrie, which was last performed in 1877, is returning to the stage at his old school in Dumfries.

The Scottish Youth Theatre and Peter Pan Moat Brae Trust are behind the event on Friday at Dumfries Academy.

Bandelero the Bandit was written by Barrie while he was a pupil.

Later in life he believed the script had been destroyed but it eventually surfaced in America and is now set to be performed once more.

An audience will be treated to a rehearsed reading of the 30-minute play by young actors from across Scotland.

The event is part of this week's launch of PPMBT's final drive to raise the remaining money needed to turn Moat Brae House - where Barrie played as a child - into a national centre for children's literature.

The appeal has already secured £4m of the £5.5m needed.

The play will be brought back to life at Barrie's old school

Fraser MacLeod, associate artistic director of the Glasgow-based SYT, said: "Scottish Youth Theatre is delighted to be able to return the first play of someone as iconic as JM Barrie to the stage, after such an enormous amount of time.

"The play is fascinating because it contains the beginnings of so many ideas and approaches that Barrie went on to expand and develop as his career flourished.

"We want young people today to see Bandelero like this, as the start of a career, and perhaps to think that if JM Barrie could have done it then, they can do it now."

Why does Bandelero the Bandit matter?

By Prof Ronnie Jack, University of Edinburgh, who rediscovered the work

Barrie thought the play was lost so it's wonderful that it has survived.

It's an important work in a number of ways, for example it shows how he loved to collect themes and ideas from everything he read and turn them into something of his own.

It also shows his early fascination with special effects.

This reached its ultimate expression in Tinker Bell, who was a character created entirely by special effects using sound and light.

A local clergyman took exception to the play and wrote to the local newspapers to condemn it for being immoral.

The young Barrie realised this was a fantastic opportunity and made the very most of it.

The next performance, which took place at the Crichton, was naturally full of people wanting to see what the fuss was about.

Joanne Dillon, rector of Dumfries Academy, said the school was very proud of its links with Barrie who was born in Kirriemuir but grew up in southern Scotland.

"The school played an important role in his early life and gave him superb opportunities to express his creativity," she said.

"His years at the academy, as well as the games he played in the garden at Moat Brae House, did a huge amount to inspire the ideas that were so important in his later life and work."

A final key element of the fundraising campaign for the children's literature centre is the launch of a new video appeal by PPMBT patron Joanna Lumley.

"This is such an exciting week for us, with Bandelero and the launch of our final fundraising push," she said.

"Imagine, being able to revive JM Barrie's first play, which he thought was lost forever, so people can enjoy it again after all this time in the very place it was originally performed.

"Projects like this are exactly what the Peter Pan Moat Brae Trust is all about, and show the enormous value of creating a national children's literature and storytelling centre for Scotland."

Plans are in place to turn Moat Brae into a centre for children's literature