Make It Happen

Brian Cox as Adam Smith and Sandy Grierson as Fred Goodwin in Make It Happen

In the immediate fallout of the 2008 banking crisis it was difficult to imagine, certainly I didn’t imagine, that a theatrical play on the subject would open the Edinburgh International Festival. But at the time, the Royal Bank of Scotland was the "world’s biggest bank" and the venerable Edinburgh institution was responsible for much of the carnage that was to ensue from the banking sector’s insane appetite for acquisition (literally of anything - Chinese aircraft carriers, graveyards in Texas) at any cost.

But here, a mere 17 years on, is that play: Make It Happen, a National Theatre of Scotland / Dundee Rep co-production written by James Graham. It tracks the meteoric rise of Fred Goodwin, formerly of the Clydesdale Bank to become CEO of the Royal. Portrayed - to begin with, sympathetically - by Sandy Grierson, Goodwin is a man obsessed by Scottish economist and philosopher, Adam Smith, in particular his Wealth of Nations, or at least, obsessed by Fred the Shred’s warped interpretation.

As has been widely trailed, Smith is played by Brian Cox, making a welcome return to Edinburgh for the first time in 10 years. At times a pantomime performance but he gets under the skin of the character, an excellent foil to Goodwin and demonstrates that there is far more to acting, as he once said, than standing on a stage and shouting. (Although he does quite a bit of that here.)

Does Make It Happen give any answers to why - other than sheer greed - 250 years of Scottish banking were swept away. Probably not, although tellingly, in a scene towards the end, Goodwin says to prime minister Gordon Brown "If it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else."

I baulk at any theatrical production over 80 minutes; this knocks in at 2 hours 40 mins but flies by and is truly magnificent, spectacular at times. If there are still tickets available for this very short run at Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre, grab them while you can.

Sandy Grierson as Fred Goodwin in Make It Happen