A CELEBRATED Scottish playwright from Greenock is bringing his new play to the Beacon.

Peter McDougall's new work, The Ticket Meister, will be staged at the Arts Centre next month.

Peter grew up in Larkfield and started working in the shipyards in Inverclyde and Glasgow, where he met his great friend Billy Connolly, when he was just 15.

Almost 60 years on, and a host of films and plays later, the writer says his home town is still very much a part of him.

Peter, 74, told the Tele: "This is the first time I've had anything on at the Beacon.

"I come back to Greenock whenever I can.

"Greenock is in my blood.

"The place never leaves you."

The Ticket Meister is Peter's ninth play for Oran Mor's A Play, A Pie and A Pint series.

It focuses on a character named Williejohn, who believes he has a stalker and senses a confrontation looming.

Peter says he started writing the play just as lockdown hit.

He said: "I never know what I'm writing when I start out.

"The Ticket Meister is about a person who controls things on the streets, an enterprise.

"I don't write for an audience, but I suppose I hope in the background that what I write will resonate with people."

Directed by April Chamberlain, the play stars Billy McBain, Paul James Corrigan and Charlene Boyd.

Peter's first script was Just Another Saturday in the early 1970s but it was his second play, Just Your Luck, that was first produced and broadcast by the BBC in 1972.

After the success of Just Your Luck, Just Another Saturday was eventually commissioned and went on to win the Prix Italia.

His works The Elephant Graveyard, Just a Boy’s Game, and Down Among the Big Boys have attracted critical acclaim over the years.

When Peter lived in London, he set up a football team and called it Roscoe Morton to pay tribute to his home town.

Peter says that when he lived in Hollywood for a time with screenwriter and fellow Greenockian, the late Alan Sharp, the pair shared a memorable moment after a night on the tiles which revealed their roots.

He said: "We were walking along Sunset Strip one night and just out of nowhere we started singing the Green Oak Tree.

"It just floated on the stillness of the heat in LA.

"It was a beautiful moment."

Peter says he still bases his characters on people he met in Inverclyde.

He added: "I was 15 when I started in the shipyards and I had no idea about being a writer.

"I just had a general malaise inside that there was something I wanted to do, but I didn't know what it was.

"I still base some of the characters around the people I met in Greenock.

"It's not always about recreating a geographical location - it's a state of mind."

The playwright says he's still amazed that he's been involved in making films and plays for more than 40 years.

He said: "When you write a film, you're using the discipline of a poet.

"The camera has its own voice.

"You don't need too much dialogue as the camera does a lot of that for you.

"You have to use your imagination more in the theatre.

"You have to get up and go there and make an occasion of it.

"It's about giving young actors a chance too."

*The Ticket Meister is at the Beacon Arts Centre from March 1 to 5.