Two of the cast members for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which is coming to the Lyceum next week, are looking forward to moving back home for the duration of the show’s run.
The actors, who are still at the dawn of their careers, have had quite different journeys, but each had a start with a local youth group where they were able to try out their abilities in a nurturing environment before deciding on acting as a profession.
And although they are both from Edinburgh, Sophie Fortune and Tallulah Greive only met on this production. From our half hour on Zoom with them while they were on a break from rehearsals, they seem to have forged a firm friendship.
Sophie will play Joyce Emily in this new production. She joined the Lyceum Young Company at 16, trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland for three years, and graduated earlier this year.
She has appeared in Inexperience at Pitlochry Festival Theatre and a range of RCS productions including Anatomy of a Suicide, and with the Young Company she was in Seven Against Edinburgh with Becky Hope Palmer. As a member of the Young Company she is coming home in more than one sense to Grindlay Street.
Hailing from Bonnyrigg, she also previously acted with another amateur company, A-team – which she believes no longer exists – and performed in Bonnie & Clyde at the Fringe.
After finishing high school she auditioned for the Royal Conservatoire, and was awarded a place where she trained for three years.
Tallulah, who is from Leith, will play Monica Douglas, another one of Miss Brodie’s girls.
She said: “I was briefly with the Lyceum Youth Theatre for a year or two when I was probably like nine, but I then went to Strange Town for about seven years, which is run by Ruth Hollyman and Steve Small, and operates out of Dalmeny Street.”
She continued: “They would commission a playwright, an early career playwright often, to write specifically for the group. It was such a nice thing to have as a young person to have something created specially for you.
“That is what Strange Town were doing and it allowed them to make a lot of very specific work for young people – including some who were neurodiverse.They would work towards making those people feel as included as possible. It was a really amazing thing they did.”
Strange Town is a theatre group which offers opportunities in the performing arts to young people aged between 5 and 25 and also has a side arm of a talent agency.
Tallulah began screen acting at a young age, and later developed her métier through physical theatre workshops with Company of Wolves. She appeared as Masha in The Seagull and Kitty in Anna Karenina and plays Beatrix in the BBC drama, Boarders.
Both spoke to The Edinburgh Reporter outlining their career paths – and how excited they both are about coming to the capital during the tour.
Tallulah emphasised that her earlier experience with youth theatre taught her that it was valuable to be taken seriously, to support and be supported by her fellow performers at Strange Town – but she also liked having a safe space outside school. She said that she started acting around the age of 12 or 13.
She said: “I think I did something like an RBS commercial or something and then did a CBeebies show. I fell out of love with it at about 17 when I left high school, but then when it came to doing the next series of the BBC show I was doing every summer I realised ‘Oh, I really want to do this’.”
Life as an actor is not always a straight line, however, and she recounted that even though she had acted in two films which were just coming out, when she attended the premiere for one of them she was relying on Universal Credit to get by.
But she said that she has supplemented her career with other jobs and considers it a good experience as an actor.
She outlined: “It is our job to be part of the world. I think there is another way to view it, every single thing you experience in life, good days and bad days, allows you to feel stuff and be open to the world and encounter loads of different types of people.
“It also gives you some perspective – and reminds me that the job I do is a dream to other people.”
Sophie said that youth theatre taught her collaboration and openness. She grew up with her brother and her mother and she said her path was a “bit more difficult”. She explained that her brother was “so smart” as he was always into maths and logistics.
She said: “I wanted to feel like the smart one. I had done drama earlier in high school but then I chose to study it for Nat 5s and Highers.
“That was the first time I felt ‘oh yes I can do this’ – it is a little hard but it was something that I wanted to overcome and I wasn’t overwhelmed by it.”
She explained that her high school teachers were very good to her and are the reason why she had the courage to audition for RCS in the first place.
Sophie, in particular, said that having had drama experience before formal study was a very good thing. She said that youth theatre taught her that viewing someone as competition, or getting “over-protective of her craft” was not the focus.
She said: “It’s genuinely about fun, and it is about being open, and it’s allowing others to be open as well. Without over complicating it, I find that you learn that best in a youth theatre.”
Tallulah, acting with Strange Town, said that it was the whole reason she got her start in acting.
She said: “The way that Ruth and Steve are with young people is amazing. I think what they really did is they took like young people so seriously.
“I think it was amazing to have a place where people knew me for being something completely different, and for a child to understand that that is possible for them.
“And I think that’s true for all extracurricular things, but I also think it’s specifically very true of youth theater because you are encouraged to support each other.”
The author, Muriel Spark, was born in Edinburgh in 1918, and wrote 22 novels including Driver’s Seat and The Girls of Slender Means. But it is The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie for which she is best known, based on her own school, James Gillespie’s School for Girls.
The book has been adapted for stage, screen and TV in many incarnations, and to most people Dame Maggie Smith was Miss Brodie.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie will be staged at The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh in association with Pitlochry Festival Theatre from 2 to 18 October, although the Scottish run goes on until 7 November.
With Tony Award nominee, Gayle Rankin, in the role of Jean Brodie, this is the first time that David Harrower’s adaptation has been performed in Scotland. Ms Rankin played one of the schoolgirls in another adaptation of the work in 2003.
It had its first outing at the Donmar Warehouse in 2018 to much critical acclaim. This script has now been updated and revised for the 2026 production.
Touring to The Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh (Previews Fri 2, Mon 5-Thu 8 October) Fri 9 October to Sun 18 October; The Citizens Theatre, Glasgow Wed 21 October to Sat 24 October; His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen Thu 29 October to Sat 31 October; Pitlochry Festival Theatre Wed 4 November to Sat 7 November 2026.
Full information and ticket info here.
