STARS of stage, screen and the music world will gather at the Oran Mor in Glasgow’s West End at 7pm next Wednesday evening for a unique memorial show celebrating the life and work of Derek Watson, the actor and musical director of Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre for more than three decades.
Coronation Street actor Patti Clare, poet and actor Gerda Stevenson and Gavin Mitchell of Still Game are among those expected to attend to pay tribute to Watson who died on September 17 last year at the age of 69.
Work permitting, the actor Rupert Everett may also attend – they were friends ever since Everett appeared at the Citizens in the late 1970s.
John Jack of Still Game and River City was a friend and colleague who worked at the Citizens Theatre with Watson.
He told The National: “It’s a fact that Derek was a major cultural figure over the last 40 years in Scotland. He was a polymath, an actor, a musician and musicologist as well as an author and latterly a bookseller. I can think of no other Scottish creative person who has had so much of an impact over more than one artistic discipline.
“In music he was an acclaimed author and a renowned expert on the composers Richard Wagner and Franz Lizst, and he was founder of the Wagnerian Society.
“His body of work was extraordinary as he acted in more than 60 plays at the Citizens and Royal Lyceum in particular.”
Tickets for the memorial are free but must be booked in advance via e-mail at 83linton@gmail.com
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