Liz Lochhead Hon FRSE was born on 26 December 1947 and is a Scottish poet, playwright, translator and broadcaster.
23 Facts About Liz Lochhead
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Elizabeth Anne Lochhead was born in Craigneuk, a "little ex-mining village just outside Motherwell", Lanarkshire.
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Liz Lochhead's mother and father had both served in the army during the Second World War, and later, her father was a local government clerk.
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Liz Lochhead went on to produce revue shows with Leonard and Gray, including Tickly Mince, and The Pie of Damocles.
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Liz Lochhead's plays include Blood and Ice, Mary Queen of Scots Got Liz Lochhead's Head Chopped Off, Perfect Days and a highly acclaimed adaptation into Scots of Moliere's Tartuffe.
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Liz Lochhead adapted the medieval texts of the York Mystery Plays, performed by a largely amateur cast at York Theatre Royal in 1992 and 1996.
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Liz Lochhead's plays have been performed on BBC Radio 4: Blood and Ice, The Perfect Days, Mary Queen of Scots Got Liz Lochhead's Head Chopped Off and The Stanley Baxter Playhouse: Mortal Memories.
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Liz Lochhead's plays Educating Agnes and Thebans premiered in the early 2000s, and in 2011 as part of the Glasgay Festival, Liz Lochhead's play Edwin Morgan's Dreams and Other Nightmares premiered at the Tron and it was revived three years later as part of the cultural celebrations for the commonwealth games.
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Liz Lochhead has produced many new works for the Oran Mor in Glasgow, including Mortal Memories and Between the Thinks Bubble and the Speech Balloon with Tom Leonard, William Letford, Grace Cleary, and Henry Bell.
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Liz Lochhead enjoys writing songs and combining poetry with music and she has collaborated with Dundee singer-songwriter Michael Marra to whom she dedicated the poem 'Ira and George'.
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Liz Lochhead has collaborated extensively with saxophonist Steve Kettley and Dundonian band The Hazey Janes.
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Liz Lochhead is a republican and vocal supporter of Scottish independence, having performed with pro-independence group National Collective, and opined in The Guardian that Robert Burns would have voted for independence.
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Liz Lochhead is well known as a feminist, both from her writing and public appearances; she has said in the past, 'feminism is like the hoovering, you just have to keep doing it.
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In 2012, Liz Lochhead travelled to Palestine, and was deeply affected by what she saw in the West Bank.
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Liz Lochhead has been a firm opponent of the Israeli occupation, and a supporter of the call for a cultural boycott of Israel.
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Liz Lochhead is openly critical of Scottish arts funding body Creative Scotland.
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In 2005, Liz Lochhead became the Poet Laureate for Glasgow, a position she held until stepping down in 2011, when she was named as the second Scots Makar, or national poet of Scotland, succeeding Edwin Morgan who had died the previous year.
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Liz Lochhead stepped down from this role in February 2016, and was succeeded by Jackie Kay in March 2016.
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Liz Lochhead is currently the Honorary President of the Caledonian Cultural Fellows at Glasgow Caledonian University.
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Liz Lochhead was writer in residence at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in 1980 and later at Glasgow University, The University of Edinburgh, Glasgow School of Art, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Eton.
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In 2015 Liz Lochhead was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.
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Liz Lochhead is only the 11th woman to have been awarded the prize since its inception in 1933, and the eighth Scot.
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In 2023, at the Book Awards Ceremony in Glasgow, Liz Lochhead was the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award.