Mayflies
★★★★☆ Sparkling
Brown’s of Leith (Rear Warehouse) (Venue 320): Fri 7 – Sun 30 Aug 2026
Review by Hugh Simpson
Grid Iron’s site-specific Mayflies is in part a massively spirited hymn to the youth culture of the 1980s. But you don’t have to have lived through that decade to appreciate such a melancholy yet defiantly bright production.
Andrew O’Hagan’s 2020 novel will already be familiar to many, while others will have seen the successful TV adaptation. Now adapter-director Ben Harrison’s version takes place in the warehouse to the rear of Brown’s of Leith. While the space is used for many settings, it doubles most handily for GMEX and the Hacienda, where Noodles and his group of friends, centred around the charismatic Tully, spent a delirious 48 hours in the 1980s.
A scene from Grid Iron’s Mayflies. Pic: Mihaela Bodlovic.
These events are recounted from the perspective of a much older Noodles, who has received devastating news from Tully.
The fact that the play falls into two contrasting halves separated by decades could easily be seen as a weakness. However, it’s already there in the source, and actually proves something of a plus point. Texturally and thematically, the two halves inform and complement each other, giving the whole thing added emotional weight.
The production also gains greatly from the casting and performances. The younger Tully and Noodles (Jude Bain and Kieran Devine) are wonderfully energetic and open-hearted; Bain has the appropriate wild charm, while Devine’s more subdued puppyish nature is very effective.
utterly believable
What impresses is not only that their friendship is utterly believable, but that we instantly accept that the older versions are the same people, which isn’t always the case with such transitions and speaks of extreme care from Harrison.
Grid Iron’s Mayflies. Pic:Mihaela Bodlovic.
Matthew Pidgeon gives the older Noodles an upright and invitingly fallible benevolence, while Graham Mackay-Bruce’s Tully is full of undimmed fire and questioning pain. A supporting cast in various roles features John McGeachie, Paul McCole, an impressive Carmen Pieraccini and Lucianne McEvoy, whose role as Tully’s other half Anna is particularly, heartbreakingly well-judged.
While there are a few moments of telling rather than showing, the adaptation works remarkably well in theatrical terms, and it would be a hard heart indeed that is not greatly moved by the ending.
Jen McGinley’s design and Simon Wilkinson’s lighting design are inventive, while there is a soundtrack brilliantly curated by David Paul Jones. Lewis den Hertog’s video design adds to a production with real visual impact, as does the movement design of Vicki Manderson – the sequences of dancing have an abandoned joy.
striking space
The visual element is helped by the striking space, which does come with a couple of drawbacks. The set-up does mean that sometimes the action is wonderfully close, but equally at other times it is disconcertingly far away. More seriously, the echoey acoustic means that the odd line is completely lost.
Grid Iron’s Mayflies. Pic: Mihaela Bodlovic.
Even leaving aside the now-problematic idolising of Morrissey, it’s possible to imagine that the portrait of the peculiar wisdom of youth given here may be based more on nostalgia than accuracy. But the depictions of friendship, the ravages of time and mortality will strike a chord with many, especially when staged with as much panache and power.
Running time: One hour and 40 minutes (no interval).
Brown’s of Leith (Rear Warehouse), 5-6 The Shore (use Tower St entrance), EH6 6QS. (Venue 320).
Friday 7 – Sunday 30 August 2026.
Daily (not Tues): 4 pm.
Tickets and details: Book here at EdFringe.com.
Grid Iron website: gridiron.org.uk
Facebook: @gridirontheatre
Instagram: @GridIronTheatre
Grid Iron’s Mayflies. Pic: Mihaela Bodlovic.
ENDS
