News from the World of Alexander McCall Smith

News Items

Really Terrible Orchestra play New York City!

1 APRIL 2009 NEW YORK TOWN HALL 8PM

The Really Terrible Orchestra play New York City

The Really Terrible Orchestra, created by Alexander McCall Smith, is going to New York for a one-off, one-date tour in what promises to be their most ear shattering performance ever.

The self-styled musicians of the RTO will play in New York Town Hall under the distinguished baton of Sir Richard Neville-Towle on April Fools’ Day – but this is no joke!

Favourites from the Edinburgh-based band’s repertoire will be performed, new works tried out and classics revisited, all as part of the 2009 New York Tartan Week celebrations.

There will be a real modern Major General reprising Gilbert and Sullivan’s legendary number from the Pirates of Penzance to new lyrics, a bagpipe serenade, cannon fire and the New York premiere of a musical saw concerto.

Founded in 1995 by Alexander McCall Smith and his wife Elizabeth, the Really Terrible Orchestra has provided a refuge for the cream of Edinburgh’s musically disadvantaged. It has spawned a number of tribute bands in the UK and in the US, including The Really Terrible Orchestra of the Triangle (RTOOT) and the RTO Pennsylvania. They perform sell-out concerts every year at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and have succeeded where the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra has failed, by selling out London’s Cadogan Hall.

All profits from the show will go to two American charities - the Children’s Orchestra Society, founded by Dr Yeou-Cheng Ma, and National Tartan Day New York Committee.

www.thereallyterribleorchestra.com

For more information visit www.the-townhall-nyc.org

Launch of La's Orchestra at Queen's Hall, Edinburgh

The launch of Alexander McCall smith’s new novel, La’s Orchestra Saves the World took place at Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall on 4th November. It was a very typical Scottish winter evening for an extremely untypical concert as the Really Terrible Orchestra, of which Alexander McCall Smith is a founder member, performed a medley of favourite wartime classics such as The White Cliffs of Dover, We’ll Meet Again and Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.

They were joined on stage briefly by the Big Noise Raploch Children’s Orchestra, which has been set up in Stirling’s Raploch by the charity Sistema Scotland. The aim is to teach the children – who are all under the age of 6 – to grow up as harmonious members of their community, by learning in the orchestra that everyone has a role to play, everyone can contribute and everyone can succeed.

Alexander McCall Smith - Launch of La's Orchestra Saves the World

During the evening Alexander McCall Smith handed over a generous donation of £180,000 to the GURKHA WELFARE TRUST, a charity set up to provide financial, medical and community aid to alleviate hardship and distress among Gurkha veterans and their dependants after they have returned to their homeland of Nepal. The cheque was presented to Captain Prembahadur, the Queen’s Own Gurkha Orderly Officer.

After the concert came the inevitable book signing, and as usual with Alexander McCall Smith’s events his fans queued patiently to meet the man himself and kept him busy until his pen ran dry.

La's Orchestra Saves the World - BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime

Alexander McCall Smith’s new novel, La’s Orchestra Saves the World, will be the Book at Bedtime on BBC Radio 4 (22.45 – 23.00) on the week beginning 8th December 2008.

The 'Book at Bedtime' slot features modern classics and new works by leading writers and literature from around the world.

No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency DVD released

A DVD of the TV movie for The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency has been released.

The 105-minute pilot, directed by the late Anthony Minghella and co-written with Richard Curtis, was screened on BBC One on Easter Sunday to an audience of 6.3 million viewers. Minghella won an Oscar in 1996 for directing The English Patient, and was Oscar-nominated for writing the screenplay for 1999's The Talented Mr Ripley.

Richard Curtis wrote the screenplays for Bridget Jones's Diary and the sequel The Edge of Reason, Love Actually, Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral. He has also been behind TV series including Blackadder and The Vicar of Dibley.

Brand new radio play coming soon

BBC Radio Scotland is soon to broadcast a brand-new revisionist comedy by Alexander McCall Smith. The Misunderstanding of Glencoe follows an Edinburgh couple who go on a Highland holiday only to discover that centuries-old tensions are still very near the surface even in contemporary Scotland.

The couple check into the MacDonald-owned Isles Hotel in Glencoe, only to find that the proprietor holds a very real and very strong grudge against the much more popular (and Campbell-owned) Buchan Hotel down the glen. Could he possibly be serious in wanting Bill to be involved in a night-time raid on the Buchan hotel car park? The MacDonalds are coming!

The Misunderstanding of Glencoe is due to be broadcast on 1st October 2008 at 11.30am.

Cast: Paul Young, Monica Gibb, John Buick, Laura Smailes and Jim Webster-Stewart.

A radio dramatisation of Miracle at Speedy Motors will be broadcast later in the year on BBC Radio 4.

Detective Agency TV series

The BBC dramatization of Alexander McCall Smith’s bestselling series The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, is to be extended into a full television series of thirteen episodes for BBC One. The series will star the full cast of the film, including jazz and blues singer Jill Scott as Precious Ramotswe, Lucian Msamati (JLB Matekoni) and Anika Noni Rose (Grace Makutsi).

The 105-minute pilot, directed by the late Anthony Minghella and co-written with Richard Curtis, was screened on BBC One on Easter Sunday to an audience of 6.3 million viewers. Minghella won an Oscar in 1996 for directing The English Patient, and was Oscar-nominated for writing the screenplay for 1999's The Talented Mr Ripley. He tragically died in March 2008 from a hemorrhage following surgery.

Richard Curtis wrote the screenplays for Bridget Jones's Diary and the sequel The Edge of Reason, Love Actually, Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral. He has also been behind TV series including Blackadder and The Vicar of Dibley.

US television network HBO is partnering the BBC, to make the new series. Filming in Botswana has now begun. Trailers of the pilot movie can be seen on the BBC website.

The first eight books in The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series were published by Polygon, with whom McCall Smith reached international bestseller status and his books have been translated into forty-five languages. The series has now passed to Little, Brown, who published the ninth book, Miracle at Speedy Motors, and will soon be publishing number ten, Tea Time for the Traditionally Built.

Alexander McCall Smith takes opera to Botswana

Alexander McCall Smith has set up a small opera house in the bush just outside Gaborone, in Botswana. The project has been undertaken jointly with David Slater, a long-time resident of Botswana who has made a major contribution over the years to music in that country. The opera house, which is called The No. 1 Ladies’ Opera House, is to be housed in an old transport garage, now converted for the purpose. Alexander McCall Smith discovered the garage when he was looking for places similar to the garage featured in The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, one of the most popular series of books in the world with more than 15 million copies sold in the English language and translation into 44 languages around the world.
 
The No. 1 Ladies’ Opera House, the only opera house in the country, will give local singers a chance to perform in opera and in regular concerts. Botswana has a tradition of choral singing. ‘There are many wonderful singers there, and this will give them the opportunity to show and develop their talents. It will also give people in Gaborone the chance to see the occasional opera, something which they currently do not have.’
 
The project is financed by Alexander McCall Smith and will provide employment for five people. At first there will be a very modest programme, with one or two operas being put on each year, using a small chamber orchestra of local players and players brought in from South Africa. As far as possible; the singers will all be local. ‘We will find our great tenors in Botswana,’ said Alexander McCall Smith. ‘We have already found one young man who can sing like Beniamino Gigli. Now he will have his chance to hold the stage.’ At other times, the venue will be used for musical recitals, poetry readings, singing and much more. Ticket prices will be kept low with occasional free performances to make sure that the music staged is as accessible as possible.
During the day a café and  restaurant will be open in the opera house.
 
A tiny white van of the sort used by Mma Ramotswe in the books and in the film of The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency sits outside the Opera House, and Mma Ramotswe’s presence will be very evident in the decor. Redbush tea – her favourite brew – will be served during the intervals.
 
‘People might think it an impossible, ridiculous dream,’ said Alexander McCall Smith. ‘But why not? The singers are there. The building is there. And if the singers have to compete with the cicadas at night, then they are well used to that. Botswana is a wonderful country which to date has lacked an opera house. Now it has one. And it doesn’t matter if it only seats sixty. Those sixty will have a lovely time.’

No. 1 Collectors' Edition

Ten years ago The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency was published by Polygon here in Edinburgh. At the time I had no idea that this book would mark the beginning of a long literary conversation between me and the characters who are at the centre of it. Nor had I any idea that this conversation would be shared with a large number of people throughout the world. Now, eight volumes and ten years later, Polygon is issuing a beautifully-produced collector’s edition of the first book of the series. Every copy will be signed by me and by the illustrator, Iain MacIntosh.

The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is not a conventional novel of detection or mystery. It is the story of Mma Ramotswe, a woman in Botswana who sets up a small business which happens to be a detective agency. She does not deal with criminal matters, but concentrates on solving the problems that people bring to her – relatively small-scale problems for the most part. In this task she is assisted by her able deputy, Mma Makutsi, and by the man who is destined to become her husband, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.

The world which Mma Ramotswe inhabits is a quiet world. People treat one another there with decency and integrity, and a great deal of time is spent drinking tea and contemplating the ways of the world. Obviously not all of Botswana is like that by any means, but it is a side of life there which really does exist. So although these are not novels of social realism, they are not entirely fanciful either. There are women like Mma Ramotswe in Botswana and, yes, they are heroines. At a broader level, the book is also intended to be a tribute to a society which has done extremely well since it achieved its independence in 1966. We are used to stories of failure and disaster emanating from Africa; this story is the opposite of that.

This first book set the tone of what was to follow. Perhaps more than the other novels in the series, it is a hymn of praise to a whole country that has come to represent something very important in that part of Africa. But it is also a tribute to a certain sort of person – to the Mma Ramotswes of this world. It shows, I hope, how good lives may be led on a small scale; how kindness conquers unkindness; how a day interspersed with breaks for tea might be a good and productive use of one’s time. And the ending, I might point out, is a happy one.

By Alexander McCall Smith

Operatic antics!

It may be that Alexander McCall Smith is something of a genius in the music world as well as the literary one, as he swaps his richly melodic words for musical notes in a new venture inspired by his love of opera. Earlier this year he opened The No.1 Ladies' Opera House in Botswana and is now in the process of writing the libretto for an opera co-written with Tom Cunningham, intriguingly entitled The Baboon Macbeth, to be performed in the opera house in June 2009.

We will bring you further developments as they are composed.

Alexander McCall Smith returns to his roots

'I go to Botswana to seek inspiration for my books. There is a certain pace of life here, a slowness, that is very special.'
SoS Children’s Villages, Botswana

Lousy is the best they can ever be

'The Fascinating thing about the Really Terrible Orchestra, though, is that its appalling players are in fact eminent in other walks of life.'
New York Times

Up and at 'em

'I write four novels a year now,' McCall Smith says, without a hint of the panic you’d expect such a statement to engender. 'They each have their season. I’m very lucky in that when I sit down to write, it comes out as though it was all written in my head already.'
The Citizen newspaper, South Africa

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