Robert Kemp (playwright)

Not to be confused with the French literary critic Robert Kemp (literary critic)

Robert Kemp (1908-1967) was a Scottish playwright.

He was born at Longhope in the Orkney Islands, where his father was the minister. Educated at Robert Gordon's College and the University of Aberdeen, he lived in London and then in Edinburgh (in Warriston Crescent). In 1948, working with Tyrone Guthrie, he staged a revival of Scotland's first Scottish play, David Lyndsay’s Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis and, also in 1948, he coined the phrase “Edinburgh Festival Fringe”. His son, Arnold Kemp, achieved fame as a newspaper editor.

Published work

Robert Kemp's plays include

• The Heart is Highland
• The Laird o' Grippy
• Let Wives Tak Tent  : a free translation into Scots of Molière's 'L'école des femmes' performed by the Compagnie Jouvet of Paris at the Edinburgh International Festival, 1947
• Off A Duck's Back
• The Other Dear Charmer
• The Perfect Gent
• The Asset (play)

External links

• Special Collection of Robert Kemp's work held by Glasgow University Library.