Make It Happen (EIF)
★★★★☆ Salutary reminder
Festival Theatre: Wed 30 Jul – Sat 9 Aug 2025
Review by Hugh Simpson
Make It Happen at the Festival Theatre has all of the trappings of an Event with a capital E. Even if it doesn’t quite justify that status, it is impressive.
James Graham’s epic drama – for the International Festival, the National Theatre of Scotland and Dundee Rep – is at times exhilarating, at times decidedly baggy, and overall well worth seeing despite its faults.
Sandy Grierson and the cast of Make It Happen. Pic: Marc Brenner.
Although fictionalised, the play clearly draws on real-life events –the story of Fred Goodwin. He, of course, is the Paisley-born accountant who was CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland when it imploded spectacularly in the financial crash of 2008.
Anyone who only paid cursory attention to the production’s considerable publicity might be forgiven for believing that Goodwin is played by the box-office gold that is Brian Cox. Instead, Cox plays the ghost of Adam Smith, the economics pioneer whose writings Goodwin cherry-picked to justify his ‘acquire at all costs’ strategy.
It should be pointed out that Cox is on stage surprisingly little, and not at all in the play’s first third. His role does have something of the ‘guest star turn’ about it, but predictably he does it beautifully.
sleekit, chillingly sociopathic figure
Goodwin himself is played magnificently by Sandy Grierson as a sleekit, chillingly sociopathic figure, although not without sympathy (and with considerable deadpan humour). He is backed up by a fourteen-strong chorus of thoroughly distinguished stage performers.
And indeed a chorus is what they are. There are hints of Greek tragedy in their deployment, as well as in the arc of Goodwin’s story and references to hubris. Surprisingly, it is also more like a Noughties jukebox musical than anyone might have expected.
Ann Louise Ross in Make It Happen. Pic: Marc Brenner.
These musical interludes (some of which are unashamedly karaoke-styled) don’t always seem to fit, and the spectacle of the cast suddenly launching into Take Me Out, Somewhere Only We Know or Chasing Pavements is always a little discomfiting.
Another problem with the huge ensemble is that if you are going to cast performers of the calibre of Andy Clark, Hannah Donaldson, Callum Cuthbertson, Kirsty Findlay, Ann Louise Ross and Gavin Jon Wright it seems a shame that some of them don’t have more to do. They are uniformly brilliant, but underused.
moral centre
Clark does get to play Gordon Brown, who in many ways is portrayed as the moral centre of the piece. Indeed, most people who are still alive are afforded a degree of understandable leeway.
Not so lucky is Alistair Darling. Sandy Batchelor’s portrayal of him is thoroughly convincing, but he comes across as a wooden, buffoon-like figure more reminiscent of certain Tory MPs of recent vintage, and not at all like the man who most people in Edinburgh remember.
Brian Cox and Sandy Grierson in Make It Happen. Pic: Marc Brenner.
Brown’s appearance does give Cox’s Smith (reassuringly much more sweary than history would suggest) the chance to say ‘Kirkcaldy has produced a Prime Minister? Piss off!’
This is just one of a series of local jokes, apparently designed to be crowd-pleasing, that are not always carefully considered. Indeed, some of them would certainly be confined to the ‘could do better’ pile by those who will be appearing on the Festival Theatre stage at panto time.
scope and ambition
However, there is a great deal of energy elsewhere in Graham’s script, which is wide-ranging in its scope and ambition. Historical and geographical concerns are touched on, along with the clear impact the whole sorry saga has on the present day. Perhaps it attempts too much. We don’t get a clear insight into many of the characters; not even Goodwin himself.
Andrew Panton’s direction is wonderfully fluid, beautifully paced and helps give the play cohesion. Emily Jane Boyle’s movement design, Anna Fleischle’s set design, Fleischle and Lewis den Hertog’s video, Lizzie Powell’s lighting, Tingying Dong’s sound and Martin Lowe’s music supervision mean that it is constantly rewarding for the eyes and ears.
Even if it sometimes pulls in too many different directions at once, it is a stimulating piece of theatre.
Running time: Two hours and 45 minutes (including one interval)
Festival Theatre, 13-29 Nicholson St, EH8 9FT (EIF).
Wednesday 30 July – Saturday 9 August 2025
Daily at 7.30 pm (not Sat 9); Matinees Wed 6, Sat 9 at 2.30 pm
Part of the Edinburgh International Festival.
Tickets and details: Book here.
Sandy Grierson and the cast of Make It Happen. Pic: Marc Brenner.
ENDS
