Long Time Dead

A gripping and darkly humorous play about the camaraderie of a trio of obsessive mountaineers.

Grizzly, Dog and Gnome live to climb mountains. They're good at it. They're not looking for death. They love what they do and they do it to the limit. But they're climbing up to places where death is only one mistake away.

Suffused with black humour, Rona Munro's play Long Time Dead is an expedition into ghosts frozen in time, immediate bonds of camaraderie and horizons yet to be discovered.

Long Time Dead was first performed by Paines Plough at The Drum, Theatre Royal Plymouth, in October 2006. The production was revived at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in August 2007 as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Rona Munro is a writer who has written extensively for stage, radio, film and television. Her plays include: James V: Katherine (Raw Material and Capital Theatres tour, 2024); Mary (Hampstead Theatre, 2022); James IV: Queen of the Fight (National Theatre of Scotland, 2022); a stage adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (UK tour, 2019); a stage adaptation of Louis de Bernières' novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin (UK tour & West End, 2019); Scuttlers (Royal Exchange, Manchester, 2015); The James Plays trilogy (National Theatre of Scotland, the Edinburgh International Festival and the National Theatre of Great Britain, 2014); Donny's Brain (Hampstead Theatre, 2012); Pandas (Traverse, 2011); Little Eagles (Royal Shakespeare Company, 2011); The Last Witch (Traverse Theatre & Edinburgh International Festival, 2009); Long Time Dead (Paines Plough & Drum Theatre Plymouth, 2006); The Indian Boy (RSC, 2006); Iron (Traverse Theatre, 2002; Royal Court, London, 2003); The Maiden Stone (Hampstead Theatre, 1995); and Bold Girls (7:84 and Hampstead Theatre, 1990). She is the co-founder, with actress Fiona Knowles, of Scotland’s oldest continuously performing, small-scale touring theatre company, The Msfits. Their one-woman shows have toured every year since 1986. Film and television work includes the Ken Loach film Ladybird Ladybird, Aimee and Jaguar and television dramas Rehab (directed by Antonia Bird) and BAFTA-nominated Bumping the Odds for the BBC. She has also written many other single plays for television and contributed to series including Casualty and Dr Who. Most recently, she wrote the screenplay for Oranges and Sunshine, directed by Jim Loach and starring Emily Watson and Hugo Weaving. She has contributed several radio plays to the Stanley Baxter Playhouse series on BBC Radio 4.