THE spring sun is trying its best to shine upon Portobello beach and it’s almost warm enough to take off your coat. The promise of late afternoon warmth has brought out the locals and ice cream shops along the promenade are doing a roaring trade while hardy kids, still in school uniform, chase each other in and out of the surf, unperturbed by the freezing waters of the Firth of Forth.

As the buzz of walkers, families, joggers and cyclists grows, you get a feel for how important this stretch of caramel sand just outside Edinburgh is to the people who live here, the part it plays in the story of Portobello.

Playwright David Greig says that he currently spends an inordinate amount of time thinking about the significance of beaches as he works on one of most keenly anticipated pieces of homegrown theatre in years.

Greig and filmmaker Bill Forsyth are adapting the latter’s renowned 1983 film Local Hero for the stage as a musical, and a beach had the starring role in the original alongside Burt Lancaster, Fulton Mackay, Peter Riegert and Denis Lawson, bringing a sense of magic and even mysticism to this strange and beautiful tale of a Texan oilman’s journey of discovery after he is sent to buy a Scottish village earmarked for development as an oil refinery.

In the movie, Pennan in Aberdeenshire stands in for the fictional village of Ferness, its red telephone box becoming a tourist attraction in its own right, while the beach was memorably played by the glorious white sands of Camusdarach, near Morar, some 180 miles west. One memorable scene near the end of the film features Lancaster and Mackay discussing the meaning of life on the sand, as the clear blue west coast waters lap in the background.

Re-imagining a beach for the theatre was always going to be challenging, never more so than when it’s a vital and enigmatic element in an adaptation of arguably the best-loved Scottish film of all time. No pressure, then. But Greig, writer, director and now artistic director of the Royal Lyceum theatre in Edinburgh, has experience of adapting the “impossible” – his 2015 version of Alasdair Gray’s novel Lanark was a revelation – and he is quietly confident that he and Glasgow-born Forsyth will find a way to pull it off.

“One of the things that is so elusively brilliant about Local Hero is that it’s got a spiritual side to it, a slightly transcendental sense,” he explains. “The character of Ben the beachcomber [played in the film by Mackay] raises so many questions. Who is he? Has he been on that beach forever?

“Bill’s writing always hovers on this very fine line between naturalistic observations of Scottish life and the magical and transcendental. The challenge for us at the heart of Local Hero, the thing that is going to make or break it and appeals to me as a theatre maker, is this idea of the beach. Local Hero is about the power of landscape over our soul, but the one thing you can’t do in the theatre is landscape. That’s immediately interesting to me. And that’s where music comes in because it has to stand in for landscape; suddenly you’re flying.”

Crucially, wonderfully, the music Greig refers to is being provided by Mark Knopfler, the former Dire Straits frontman who composed the evocative folk-tinged soundtrack that helped make the film become such an international hit, especially in the US. Knopfler is writing new songs to accompany and enhance his original score, with the show receiving its world premiere at the Lyceum in spring next year, before transferring to London’s Old Vic.

It was announced this week, meanwhile, that the production will be directed by Irishman John Crowley, the Oscar-nominated director of the films Brooklyn and Boy A, whose theatre work – which includes The Present, starring Cate Blanchett, and Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman – has taken the West End and Broadway by storm.

You get the feeling Greig, 50, a Scot who grew up watching Local Hero and Gregory’s Girl, Forsyth’s endlessly charming 1981 cult classic about teenage love in Cumbernauld, still can’t quite believe he’s assembled such a dream team.

“Mark has conquered every musical field but he’s particularly interested in folk music, Americana and country, and producing a suite of songs for these characters piqued his interest,” says the playwright, whose previous work includes Dunsinane, The Events, Midsummer and the book for the West End and Broadway versions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. “He’s not a composer in a Broadway style. But productions like the Bob Dylan musical Girl From the North Country and Hamilton have really opened up the musical theatre palette to other tones and textures.

“That was exciting for all of us and it really took off when John came on board. He’s an amazing director who has a deep connection to the use of music. John brings a visionary sense of what the tone and the feel of this piece could be and he’s interested in telling the story in a way that is theatrically magical.”

As for working with Forsyth, Greig says the collaboration has offered new creative experiences for both of them.

“Bill is a filmmaker, director and writer so there’s a bit of a language barrier that we had to overcome,” he explains. “He had to get his head round theatre and I had to get my head round how you talk to someone whose storytelling medium is cinema. That took a bit of time.

“It made me think about what’s important. What does someone who has bought a ticket for Local Hero really want to see? I think it’s Bill Forsyth-ness. That’s the thing I grew up with.

“Sometimes the lines he writes are quite odd but they have that certain ‘thing’. It’s like hearing a singer you like – you can instantly recognise it.

“It’s been so enjoyable now we’ve found that language and I see my role as trying to help shape the story so it will work in theatre terms without losing that peculiar tone of voice. Hopefully that’s what will make the show feel original.”

Greig also believes contemporary audiences will find new and varied resonances in the story, 35 years after the film was released to critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic.

“You can see Local Hero as being about Menie beach and Donald Trump – a billionaire buying up a chunk of Scotland – environmentalism and oil, community and capitalism,” says the Fife-based writer. “But it’s also a love story about a man who falls in love with a couple, which is very unusual. He totally falls for their life.

“For me, though, Local Hero is a story about value. How do you know what something is worth? The brilliant twist of Local Hero is that the community is very keen to sell out – their ship has come in. I’m keen that we preserve the sense that it is up to you to find your way through all this. I don’t want us to turn it into just one thing.”

There a certain pressure on the production to deliver, he says, especially for the home crowd. But he and the team are embracing the chance to create something new than just repackaging an old favourite.

“The notion of birthing Local Hero at the Lyceum felt very fortuitous because it gave us the chance to make something on an intimate scale for a home audience,” he says. “If we can make it so that the audience in Scotland likes it, then it will have integrity.

“If we make something that is truly beautiful, moving, delicate and joyful on its own terms, a sister to the film rather than riding on the coat tails, it will be really worthwhile.

“But the film will always be the film. Nothing that we do is going to spoil that. If we screw up, it’ll be embarrassing for everybody involved but it will disappear. The film will live on regardless. If we do well, it’ll bring a whole new audience to the film.”

Local Hero is the centrepiece of an exciting and intriguing new season at the Lyceum, Greig’s third as creative director. Other highlights include the late Glasgow-born poet Edwin Morgan’s Scots version of classic love story Cyrano de Bergerac, a production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night set amid the psychedelia of the 1960s, and for Christmas 2018, a new re-telling of Peter Pan.

Elsewhere, another film adaptation, this time a theatrical re-imagining of Touching the Void, written by Greig, will explore Joe Simpson’s extraordinary tale of human survival in the Andes, and award-winning Edinburgh-based playwright Zinnie Harris will continue her female-focused examination of the canon with a new version of Jacobean revenge tragedy The Duchess Of Malfi.

Greig has never been one to shy away from confronting the political, either with a big or small “p” (he was a vocal supporter of independence during the 2014 referendum) but he says the current climate of division and uncertainty made him keen to focus on universal stories.

“The season we’re coming to an end of now was quite political and had an edge of questioning. This year I felt we needed a coming together with what I’d call ‘campfire’ tales – stories that bring everybody to the theatre, like Local Hero, Cyrano de Bergerac and Touching the Void. All of these are stories you could tell round a campfire, that everyone from the teenager to grandad would enjoy.

“A lot of these shows will, I hope, attract people who aren’t regular theatre goers. Theatre as metaphor, as poetry, and as a transformative force, is what excites me. This season is about big, poetic, mythical stories but also that feeling of welcome. Let’s experience these stories together and we might find they resonate with our lives right now, but I’m not going to tell you how or why – that bit is up to you.”

Like much of the creative community in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK, Greig has spoken out against Brexit and the negative impact he believes it is having across many sectors of society, including the arts.

“Over the last 30 to 40 years, Scotland has benefitted from its sense of European-ness,” he says. “I’ve made work in Spain, Greece, the Czech Republic and my work has been put on in many European countries. When I took over the Lyceum I wanted our theatre to be on the European map, to make work with European directors and have it travel. There’s no question that it’s more difficult now. We’re going in the wrong direction.

“You cannot underestimate how precarious it is being a young artist or theatre maker in Scotland right now. It’s a borderline terrible place to be – austerity and local authority cuts have really bitten.

“The act of remaining in Scotland to make your work has always been a bit of a statement of faith in your country. If you’re about practical success, you’ll go to London, New York or Paris as so many Scots have done in past. That’s a great thing, of course – we should travel and do different things. But having an indigenous community of makers who live in Scotland is also a brilliant thing. We’ve managed to have that in the last 30 years, partly because of that sense of connection, that feeling of being just as plugged in as we would be if we lived in Copenhagen or Berlin.

“Travelling in the other direction means it’s going to be a challenge to keep our best artists here or attract them back once they’ve gone. You want there to be a sense that there is something for them to come back too, that there’s a carrying stream of culture taking place musically, theatrically, visually, cinematically. And this is bigger than any government or funding body. It’s about the global economy and us travelling in a neo-liberal austerity direction away from Europe. That’s a real challenge.”

Back at Portobello beach, all this talk of culture, division, meaning and value has got me thinking of Local Hero again. I wish we could bump into a Ben the beachcomber type character, someone enigmatic and wise who could help us put current events into perspective round the campfire. By 7pm the evening sun has finally broken through and the scene is bathed in shimmering light. Sadly, we haven’t found our Ben, but there is a certain Forsyth-ness in the air all the same.

Local Hero runs at the Royal Lyceum from 23 March-20 April 2019. The first release of tickets go on sale at 10am on Tuesday. For details of the Lyceum's new season go to www.lyceum.org.uk

Bill Forsyth is revered around the world as one of the most original filmmakers of the last 40 years. The Glaswegian’s movies are unique – whimsical, naturalistic and surreal all at the same time, and he has inspired scores of Scottish writers and directors. Local Hero, from 1983, brought him international fame and is arguably the best-loved Scottish film of all time. But it’s not his only notable work…

Gregory’s Girl

In many people’s eyes this 1981 classic rivals Local Hero as Forsyth’s best film. At turns funny, adorable and odd, it follows the travails of unrequited teenage love as Gregory (John Gordon Sinclair) falls for footballing sensation Dorothy (Dee Hepburn) but ends up catching the eye of Susan, played by Clare Grogan. Famously features a scene where Gregory shows Susan how not to fall off the side of the world while dancing. Cumbernauld has never looked so romantic.

That Sinking Feeling

Also starring a young John Gordon Sinclair and made for £2000, this 1979 film was the cheapest movie ever to get a cinematic release. Centring on four bored, skint Glasgow teenagers who get into trouble while selling kitchen sinks, it showed Forsyth’s mastery of surreal humour on a shoestring budget. It also features a cameo by arts impresario Richard Demarco.

Comfort and Joy

Starring Bill Paterson as a frustrated DJ whose life goes off the rails after his girlfriend leaves him, this 1984 film is funny and bizarre in equal measures. Kleptomania, a rabbit and a turf war between rival families all find a place in this gem, set in Glasgow just days before Christmas. Ricky Fulton, Alex Norton and Clare Grogan all turn up in this one.

Being Human

This 1994 comedy drama stars Robin Williams, John Turturro and Bill Nighy in Forsyth’s exploration of the experience of a single human soul through the ages. A flop on its release, it divides both the critics and Forsyth aficiondos.

Gregory’s Two Girls

Picking up Gregory’s story in 1999, John Gordon Sinclair returned as the eponymous, still awkward and unlucky-in-love hero, now a teacher at his old school in Cumbernauld. Warm and thoroughly watchable.