TEN years ago, theatre boss Vicky Featherstone walked into a tiny office in Hope Street and stared at the emptiness.

All she had was her mobile phone, a few scribbled notes and a pencil.

Thankfully, the new head of the National Theatre of Scotland had brought with her a head full of dreams.

Ten years on, the NTS is not only a major fixture in our cultural landscape, it’s also a massive success story, having produced 254 shows in 261 locations across the world.

The theatre company, set up to produce Scottish material using Scottish talent has not only been successful at home. One of its productions, Black Watch, has enjoyed seven years of touring the world, playing to over 250,000 people, across four continents and winning 24 awards.

Other shows such as The James Plays, which featured the lives of three James kings of Scotland, have toured the UK to critical acclaim, watched by more than 160,000 people.

The productions have ranged from the historically dramatic to surreal absurdity, from small community scale to epic events in Scotland’s largest auditoriums.

Now, BBC Scotland are celebrating the decade of the NTS with a new documentary, running at the end of this month.

The NTS explained how the theatre company has breathed new life into Scottish theatre, with shows that are relevant to Scots, yet many of which have been embraced by a world audience.

Right from the start, the NTS has been about range and diversity.

“When our first production Home was first launched it was the chance for Vicky to make a defining statement. It wasn’t launched in a beautiful theatre, it was set in council houses in Cranhill and Easterhouse, and in Shetland.

“She wanted theatre to be accessible to a number of communities across Scotland.”

Scottish theatre makers, actors, writers, directors have been pushed centre stage, and sometimes Scots talent brought up from London, or abroad.

Alan Cumming, for example, stormed the stage when he starred in the Bacchae in 2008.

“It’s an important part of the business model to get the widest possible audience,” says the spokesperson.

“Box office revenue makes a vital contribution, but choosing and programming programme on the basis of whether it will be a commercial success is not what the National theatre of Scotland is about.

“This autumn for example, were doing Theatre In Schools Scotland, to ensure children in Scotland get a piece of high quality theatre in their school every year.

And tours to remote communities are vital.

The hit play The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart was in fact conceived to play to remote communities, and it turned out to be a long running international hit.

“Who would have produced a Scottish subject show like Black Watch, and had the ability to tour it?” said the spokesperson.

Not all the shows have been critical successes. Peter Pan didn’t really fly and The Wickerman struggle to self-define. Yer Granny, starring Gregor Fisher as a grotesque, pulled in huge audiences, but didn’t send the critics home happy.

Yet, the boldness of the NTS production team such as Neil Murray, David Greig and Cora Bissett, has paid off time and time again. Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, the stage adaptation of Alan Warner’s book, is now running in London and set to tour Melbourne.

“It was an opportunity to give this talent a voice,” says the spokesperson of young women, most of them unknown, who proved to be exceptional.

The Company has performed in approximately 40 venues/transformed spaces across Glasgow, including community centres, shopping malls, office blocks, traditional theatres, and on the streets.

Management have changed but the core values remain, to produce Scottish work that is diverse, challenging and entertaining.

Yet, much of the Scottish work has universal themes which resonate entirely abroad.

“When Black Watch played in South Korea the audiences really got it. There was an understanding of what it was like to send family members off to war.”

The National Theatre of Scotland is set to move into its own building, an old converted cash n’ carry shed, the plan being to make operations more cost effective.

Yet, there is little doubt the productions to emerge in the years ahead will be fresh and inventive.