IT was the fire which destroyed a national cultural treasure, and devastated art lovers and beyond.

Now last June's fire at the Mackintosh Building of the Glasgow School of Art is to be the subject of a play, the first major art work inspired by the blaze.

'The Mack' is a one-hour play by writer and performer Rob Drummond, and will be performed in Glasgow's A Play, a Pie and a Pint season at the Oran Mor venue.

Taking place in three time periods, with a cast that includes John Michie, James McInernay and Janet Coulson, it features the voices of three characters: the real life Charles Rennie Mackintosh, with words taken from his letters to his wife, an art expert confronting the devastation of the 2018 fire, and a fire fighter who dealt with the building's first blaze, in 2014.

Drummond said that his piece, which opens on April 15, does not "point fingers" or cast blame for the fire.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has yet to reveal its report into the 2018 blaze.

A recent report by the Culture Committee of the Scottish Parliament urged a full judicial inquiry into the 2014 and 2018 fires.

Drummond said that he first thought of addressing the aftermath of the fires on stage when first confronted with the news in June last year.

He said: "When I saw the news reports of the second fire, I just thought it was some kind of anniversary story about the first fire. It was so surreal to see it happening all over again.

"A friend of my wife is in Glasgow to research Mackintosh, and I saw how shocked she was by the fire.

"It made me think, is this loss of a building the same as other kinds of loss, compared to the loss of life, is art really that important? I started thinking about all these issues."

The board of the art school (GSA), led by chair Muriel Gray, have already committed to rebuilding the Mackintosh Building following the architect and artists original plans.

Mr Drummon added: "The big question now is, do we rebuild it? Or let it go?

"If it is rebuilt in some way, would it be something new or traditional?

"We don't even know the cause of the fire yet of course, and the report could come out when the play is running, which would change it again."

The letters from Charles Rennie Mackintosh to his wife, the artist and designer Margaret Macdonald, were written when the two were parted for a time in 1927, and speak of his love for her, among domestic details.

Mackintosh died in 1928.

Drummond said that he had not set out to write a polemical work about the Mackintosh Building fires.

He noted that the piece may be one of the first art works directly inspired by the disasters.

He added: "For that reason, I am not going into pointing fingers.

"The play is not making a political statement - it is more looking at the effects of the fires, from a human level."