Bonnar for Leitheatre Hon Pres

Dec 21 2025 | By Thom Dibdin More

Mark Bonnar re-joins Leitheatre as Honorary President

Scottish actor Mark Bonnar, recently seen on in Edinburgh-set TV dramas Department Q and Guilt, as well as Celebrity Traitors, has been made honorary president of local amateur company Leitheatre.

It is a return to his roots for the BAFTA Award-inning actor, who started his acting career as the back end of a pantomime cow with Leitheatre, before quickly graduating to more meaty roles and then, bitten by the acting bug, setting off for the then Glasgow conservatoire.

The announcement comes as the company announces it three productions for 2026, its Eightieth Anniversary Year.

Mark Bonnar (left) as Biff in Death of a Salesman. Pic: Leitheatre.

In 1991, Bonnar was working in the Edinburgh District Council planning department when two of his pals, Mike Paton and Duncan Robertson, suggested he go to their drama group, “because I mucked around so much in the office,” he says.

The result was that he played the back end of the cow for that year’s Christmas show.

“Now, obviously I didn’t want to be typecast,” says Bonnar, “so I moved on very quickly to other roles like Dr Bradman in Blithe Spirit, the Noel Coward play, and Biff in Death of a Salesman.

“I kind of quickly realised that I loved acting more than I loved the planning department so I headed off to the conservatoire in Glasgow for three years, to study there.”

icing on the cake

Susan Duffy, President of Leitheatre said: “it’s amazing to think that someone we worked alongside all those years ago has gone on to achieve so much. We are really proud of Mark and we’re excited to have him as our honorary president in what is our 80th anniversary year.

“HavingMark as our honorary president really puts the icing on the cake!”

The company stage three productions a year and it has what looks to be an enthralling programme for 2026, kicking off with Dale Wasserman’s disturbing and challenging adaptation of the Ken Kessey novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in May.

For the Fringe, the company will be relocating Paul Allen’s 1998 stage adaptation of the film, Brassed Off from the South Yorkshire mining village of Grimley (based largely on Grimthorpe) to the mining villages of Fife.

And finally, the company will be staging an adaptation of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol written especially for them, at the end of November.

have a blast

“I was delighted when Leitheatre asked me to be their honorary president,” adds Bonnar. “Because it is not just a place where you can learn about acting or backstage stuff, take part in the most wonderful productions, it is a place you can make friends for life – as I have.

“So, join up! Come along and tread the same boards I trod all those many many moons ago. Because I think first and foremost it is great fun, and you will meet like minded people and you will have a blast. So do join, and if you can’t join or don’t want to join, come along and support us by watching the shows that we put on – which are fantastic!”