The Collection
By Mike Cullen
Tour Dates
An explosive look at the seedy world of debt collection.
Lawson is the best collector in the business, he is at the top of the “profession”. However when one of his clients commits suicide, Lawson’s life is shattered irrevocably. As the mystery deepens around the suicide, the noose tightens, the stakes rise and Lawson and his colleagues are pushed into a deadly power game from which there can only be one winner. Both funny and shocking, this renowned play mixes edge-of-your-seat tension with gallons of Scottish black humour to create an unforgettable night of theatre.
Rapture’s Michael Emans explains “Mike’s script is a profoundly prescient play about debt. What the characters in the play say about debt and being in debt, I can relate to and according to statistics, more of us are in debt then ever before. It’s also a great thriller, very funny and with a top Scottish cast, I can’t wait to bring the show to theatres all over Scotland.”
CATS Nomination for Best Male Performance – Jimmy Chisholm
Photos & Videos
Cast & Creatives
Jimmy Chisholm
Jimmy is a well-known face to regular theatre-goers in Scotland, as during his forty year career, he has appeared in almost every Scottish theatre in existence and a few which are, sadly, no more. An Inverness boy, Jimmy trained at Queen Margaret College in Edinburgh before going on to enjoy an extensive career in Theatre, TV, Film, and Radio. His love of acting has never diminished.
For Rapture: Uncle Varick, Blue Orange, Gagarin Way and The Collection (2013, 2006).
David Tarkenter
For Rapture: All My Sons, The Last Yankee, Betrayal, Hamlet and The Collection.
Theatre includes: The Knight of the Burning Pestle (The Globe Theatre Company), The 39 Steps (Vienna), Beauty and the Beast, Jack and the Beanstalk, Arsenic and Old Lace, Absent Friends, The Rivals and The Winter’s Tale. David has a long association with the Mercury Theatre having previously appeared for the company as Abanazar in Aladdin, Muley in The Grapes of Wrath and in the title role of King David, amongst countless others.
Television and film credits include: Falling, Harry, Quayside, Heartbeat, Micawber, Inspector Rebus, Byker Grove and, most recently, 55 Degrees North and Lawless.
David has also worked extensively as a voiceover artist, including recording numerous audio books, commercials and radio plays.
Tam Dean Burn
For Rapture: The Collection
Theatre includes: Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaites (Linlithgow Palace); Found At Sea (Traverse); The Last Polar Bears, Venus As A Boy, Tutti Frutti (National Theatre of Scotland); Year Of The Horse (Tron & Edinburgh Fringe); The Cutting Room, Venice Preserved, The Cherry Orchard, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, Scrooge, Peer Gynt, The Pleasure Man (Glasgow Citizens); Filth (Citizens, National Tour and Calgary, Canada); Platonov (Almeida); Berkoff’s Messiah (Edinburgh Assembly and You’ll Have Had Your Hole (West Yorkshire Playhouse & London Astoria).
Television includes: The Borgias, Bedlam; River City, Taggart, Holby City, Helen West and Longford.
As part of the Commonwealth Games Cultural Programme, Tam travelled round Scotland by bike on the Julia Donaldson Storytelling Cycle Challenge.
Pauline Turner
Pauline Turner trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art and has worked extensively in theatre, film, television and voice-over.
For Rapture: All My Sons, The Last Yankee and The Collection.
Theatre includes: Mill on the Floss (Shared Experience/international tour/West End), The Unconquered (Stellar Quines Theatre Company), Freedom Play (Southbank Centre/London Literature Festival), Top Girls (Citizens Theatre), Measure for Measure (Peter Hall Company/RSC), Sun Is Shining (BAC/Brits off Broadway Festival, NYC), Bring Me Sunshine (Manchester Royal Exchange), One Million Tiny Plays About Britain (Citizens Theatre/Edinburgh Festival) and Emma (Watford Palace Theatre).
Film and TV credits include: Young Adam (Warner Bros/Hanway), Two Thousand Acres of Sky (BBC), Martin Chuzzlewit (BBC/WGBH Boston), Casualty (BBC), Goodnight Mister Tom (ITV/Carlton), Bad Boys (BBC), Taggart (STV), Cuffs (BBC/Tiger Aspect) and The Key (BBC).
Michael Emans
In his training at Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama, Michael received a BA Hons in Theatre Directing, and spent his third year assisting Patrick Sandford at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton working on a range of work from classic Tom Stoppard to new writing to Panto!
After leaving drama school Michael assisted Mark Thomson at the Royal Lyceum Theatre for a season. Michael has also directed at the Oran Mor with the winner of the Orange Playwriting Award, “Magnum Opus” and the acclaimed “Burns on the Solway”.
Other previous theatre includes: Over the Mountain by Roy Williams (Creek Road Studio Theatre), Tom Jones (Lillian Bayliss Theatre), The Finishing School by Claire Luckham (Nuffield Theatre, Southampton).
For Rapture Theatre, Michael has directed: Death and the Maiden, The Dumb Waiter, Some Kind of Love Story, Shadowlands, Taking Sides, Clara, An Evening with Gary Lineker, Boys’ Life, Grace, Death of a Salesman, A Kind of Alaska, Habeas Corpus, Rat in the Skull, Oleanna, Macbeth, Perfect Days, Bold Girls, Shang-a-Lang, Assassins, Betrayal, Mr. Peters’ Connections, Insignificance, Speed the Plow, Simpatico, Boy Gets Girl, Your Turn to Clean the Stair, The Old Neighborhood, The Sailmaker, Richard III, Double Top, Boston Marriage, Twisted, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Proof, Misery, Blue/Orange, Damages, The Collection, Frozen, Broken Glass, Shining City, Betrayal 2008, Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Hamlet, Gagarin Way, The Sash, The Collection, Shang-a-Lang 2013, Uncle Varick., All My Sons , The Last Yankee , Democracy, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf , A Streetcar Named Desire, The Ten Pound Look, The Browning Version , A Kind of Alaska ( 2019) , The Red Lion and Clybourne Park.
Lyn McAndrew
Trained: Edinburgh University, Strathclyde University
For Rapture Theatre as designer: Macbeth, Perfect Days, Assassins, Insignificance, Simpatico, Old Neighborhood, Richard III, Boston Marriage, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Proof, Misery, Blue/Orange, Damages,The Collection, Broken Glass, Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Hamlet, Gagarin Way and The Sash.
Davy Cunningham
For Rapture: A Streetcar Named Desire, Blue/Orange, Hamlet and The Collection.
Davy Cunningham has been a freelance Lighting Designer since 1985. He has lit more than 300 productions, of which roughly 200 were operas and 100 plays, in 26 countries and more than 200 theatres. Recent operas include Verdi’s La Traviata for Baden Baden Festspielhaus, Pucinni’s Turandot for Bregenz Festspiele. and Don Pasquale for Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Düsseldorf.
Recent work has included The Hanging Gardens by Frank McGuinness at the Abbey and Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People at the Gate in Dublin.
Show Information
2 hours 15 mins
Suitable for 14+ years
The Citizen’s Advice Bureau will be available to have a chat with audience members during the interval and post-show. N.B. This option is only available if the venue has opted to invite the CAB to offer this service.