AUTHOR Alexander McCall Smith must be a stickler for meeting a deadline, because he has so many things on the boil, but manages to keep them all straight.
In Cape Town to publicise his latest Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency novel (The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Cafe), McCall Smith is also here to officially open the Rosebank Theatre (he and wife, Elizabeth, are the theatre’s patrons).
Earlier this year, the theatre presented a run of the musical Fergus of Galloway, which McCall Smith scripted (collaborating with Edinburgh composer, Tom Cunningham). He also wrote the libretto for the chamber opera Macbeth of the Okovango, which Nicholas Ellenbogen has so far presented at Artscape in Cape Town, in Gabarone, Botswana, and at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland.
McCall Smith says he cut his dramatic teeth writing radio plays for BBC radio. The Edinburgh resident regularly writes Mma Ramotswa plays for BBC radio, and has just finished a series of five radio plays based on the Scotland Street novels which will be recorded early next year.
He successfully re-introduced a new generation to the concept of the serial novel when The Scotsman newspaper published 44 Scotland Street as an episodic novel, starting in 1994. And to think, back when he read Amistad Maupin’s Tales of the City, he was impressed enough to tell the US writer that he liked what he’d done (they met at a party at fellow author Amy Tan’s house). Maupin tried to dissaude McCall Smith from starting something similar because it is such a huge, difficult commitment, but he did it anyway.
Today the stories about the fictional, slightly dysfunctional residents of 44 Scotland Street, Edinburgh, is the longest-running serialised novel ever, with McCall Smith working on number 10.
The 66-year-old is also the author of several other serials, including The Sunday Philosphers Club, Corduroy Mansions and the short comedic novels about Professor Dr von Igelfeld.
He regularly works across platforms – whether repurposing his novels or writing specifically for radio, the stage, creating a new work online or crafting short stories for anthologies.
Working on all these mediums wouldn’t work half as well though, if he didn’t have a good yarn to spin, and his brimming creativy goes hand in hand with being a keen observer.
While we are talking he politely asks for a piece of paper from my notebook because he has just been struck by a good idea for a short story. He laughingly suggests a plot (it is indeed funny, but let’s not give the game away) and tucks the reminder into his pocket.
McCall Smith doesn’t get bored working on a serial, but the opposite: “The more time one spends with a literary character, the more comfortable one feels with the characters and the more interesting the characters become.”
He likens it to the difference between talking to a stranger and an old friend.
“I think the familiary with the characters allows one to see new aspects of them, that they find themselves in different situations and newer aspects of their characters will come through,” he says.
The sheer attraction of creating something is what interests him: “That’s one of the great attractions of writing a serial work. You have created a world and you can embellish it, develop it, more so than if you’ve just visited it once in the course of writing a novel.
“To be able to go back into that world and see its further ramifications and possibilities is very satisfying.”
One of his favourite characters from the Scotland Street series is Bertie, the little boy who struggles with the over-ambitious mother.
Ellenbogen will give voice to the character on stage in Cape Town this week, in a series of “staged meetings” between author, theatremaker and some of the book characters.
McCall Smith decided to buy the Rosebank Theatre building to give Theatre for Africa and specifically his old friend Nicholas, a home: “To give him a showcase because he is such a treasure. So, it’s not a financial thing, it’s admiration for Nicholas and what he does. I want him to be able to do his magnificent work in nice conditions, and that’s it. And, he brings such joy to people, he’s just terrific.”
He was going to write something new for Ellenbogen to perform, and still will do that. He just hadn’t found the time between marketing the 15th Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency novel, finishing the latest radio drama and working on number 10 in the Scotland Street series to set a deadline for that piece. But he will.