Elizabeth MacLennan, who has died of leukaemia aged 77, was an actor, writer and one of those passionate, pioneering women who periodically erupt to change the British theatre. In 1971 she joined forces with her husband, the playwright John McGrath, and her brother David, to form the 7:84 theatre company. Over the next 17 years, eventually creating two separate branches, it was to tour England and Scotland addressing political issues in a popular form with phenomenal success. After the demise of the companies and her husband’s death in 2002, MacLennan turned increasingly to writing and lecturing without ever abandoning her socialist convictions.
She was born in Glasgow into a distinguished medical family. Her father, Hector, was an obstetrician and her mother, Isobel, a public health doctor. Liz enjoyed an undeniably privileged upbringing, going first to Laurel Bank girls’ school in Glasgow and then, at the age of 13, to Benenden in Kent. In 1956 she went to St Hilda’s College, Oxford, to read modern history and instantly become a leading light in university theatre. I myself had a minor role in McGrath’s adaptation of Aristophanes’ The Birds in which she was a spectacularly glamorous goddess. At Oxford she also appeared in revue with Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett and Ken Loach and was a memorably sensual Molly Bloom in an adaptation of Joyce’s Ulysses.
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