THE stage adaptation of one of the greatest Scottish novels of the last century is to have musical contributions from a member of pop band Franz Ferdinand.

Graham Eatough, the director of Lanark: A Life in Three Acts at the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) this summer, has revealed further details of one of the festival's most keenly-anticipated productions.

Eatough was speaking at the Royal Society of Edinburgh in conversation with Professor Alan Riach of the University of Glasgow when he revealed that Nick McCarthy, the guitarist from Glasgow pop band Franz Ferdinand, would be part of the team putting the show together for the festival.

The theatrical version of Lanark, which is being written by leading Scottish playwright David Greig, is still a "work in progress", Eatough said, although staging the book, published in 1981, had been a "long held dream".

Eatough said the play would be a "picaresque journey" with a huge geography, a complex structure - like the novel itself - and a complex timescale.

He also said the sense of humour of Gray's novel, often described as one of the most important Scottish books of the last century, would also be retained for the staged version.

"The story is not a straight line," Eatough said, as he read from Greig's second draft where one of the characters asks "What's on the other side of the sky?" and the reply is "There is no other side".

The novel has four books, not in chronological order, but the play will have three acts - an approach which the author is happy with, he said.

He also hinted that Gray himself may appear on the stage in the world premiere production as Nastler, or Nasty Alisdair.

The production of the play marks not only the 70th anniversary of the Citizens Theatre, which is co-producing the play, but Gray's 80th birthday.

The director hinted that the production "would be drawn to Gray's illustrations as a visual resource" for the play, and connect with Gray the visual artist.

The second draft of the play is now progressing and rehearsals will begin in late June and early July.

Nick Powell is leading the music for the show, working with McCarthy.

There will be ten actors in the production, which have yet to be announced.

When the production was announced for the festival, Fergus Linehan, the artistic director of the EIF, said new technology could allow for the book's more fantastical elements to be staged in a new way.

He said earlier this year: "I chose to stage it because it is an audacious Scottish project, and the people behind it are really, really strong artists, and it's a great festival project, and because I love the book.

"But it is a troubled book, and it did trouble me.

"It is not a perfect book, it is structurally sprawling and has some incredibly random sections. But at the same time, it really struck me as really capturing a place.

"Its polymathic thinking really struck me.

"We don't know how long it will end up being or what the structure will be, but structurally a festival is the right environment to develop it."

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