John Cairney made his stage debut at the Park Theatre, Glasgow, before enrolling at the RSAMD in Glasgow. After graduation, he joined the Wilson Barrett Company as Snake in "The School for Scandal". A season at the Glasgow Citizens' Theatre followed before going on to the Bristol Old Vic where he appeared in the British premiere of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible". He returned to the Citizens from time to time, most notably as Hamlet in 1960. He also appeared in the premiere of John Arden's "Armstrong's Last Goodnight" in 1964. Other stage work until 1991 included King Humanitie in "The Thrie Estaites" for Tyrone Guthrie at the Edinburgh Festival, Archie Rice in "The Entertainer" at Dundee and "A Year Out In New Zealand" for Tandem Press, NZ. He wrote three Burns books for Luath Press in Edinburgh as well as biographies of R.L. Stevenson and C.R. Mackintosh and a book of essays on Glasgow entitled "Glasgow by the way, but". His second novel, "Flashback Forward", was published for Random House, NZ, and his book on acting, "Greasepaint Monkey" is due for publication by Luath Press, Edinburgh in 2010. Dr Cairney gained an M.Litt from Glasgow University for a "History of Solo Theatre" in 1988 and, in 1994, a PhD from Victoria University, Wellington, for his study of Stevenson and Theatre. Having spent the last seventeen years in New Zealand, John and Alannah have now returned to live again in Scotland.
Although he played Andrew Keir s son in The Devil-Ship Pirates , he was less than four years his junior in real life.
