Like many actors, Tam Dean Burn is familiar with Dundee Rep’s boards – but he’s got a unique claim to fame round these parts.
Nowadays, the Leith-born thespian is known for his scene-stealing TV and film roles, including River City gangster Thomas McCabe, Alastair in Outlander, and a grim-faced clan leader in Robert the Bruce film Outlaw King.
But before all that, he was a big enough character off-stage to earn a name-check in a controversial Rep production On The Line, about the infamous Timex strike which divided the city.
Tam came to Dundee as a political agitator: he ran in council elections as a Communist and in 1993, during the strike, earned the nickname “Spiderman”.
On a call from his Glasgow home, the drama veteran happily reminisces about his time on the picket line.
How did Tam Dean Burn get nickname ‘Spiderman’?
He remembers one particular incident with a bus ferrying in workers.
“When they managed to get the gates open, I made this futile gesture,” he says. “I jumped onto the front of the scab bus and held on to the windscreen wipers just to give the driver a bit of lip.
“The cops were pulling me off, but it looked as if I’d just stuck to the window. We all got banged up that night, though I did get a nickname out of it.”
Tam remembers this as an “inspirational” time, though also reveals as a kid he used to visit Dundee on holidays to visit his dad’s folks.
“It was the the Timex strike that brought me back,” he admits.
“I was really happy because I think Dundee’s very special, the only place in Scotland that really has a sense of itself still.”
And he continues to count former Timex worker and ex-leader of the city’s Labour group Mary McGregor as a pal.
What brings Tam back to Dundee stage?
This month, he’s back on the Rep stage as the narrator in The Revelations of Rab McVie – a ground-breaking combination of live music from the Filthy Tongues, live art created on stage and a barnstorming performance from Tam himself as a lost soul amid death and destruction.
The nightmarish dreamscape has been devised by Tongues’ frontman and former Goodbye Mr Mackenzie member Martin Metcalfe, alongside artist Maria Rudd, who on stage paints on a lightbox projected on-screen.
Two years ago, Rab McVie wowed audiences at Edinburgh’s Traverse and that summer’s Fringe, with Tam adding to the intensity as an everyman figure that seeks light and hope among the dark scenes Maria conjures up.
It’s a role the former punk believes he was made for.
“It is an incredible show, a gift in so many ways,” Tam explains.
“It’s only an hour, but, God, it’s so intense. We’ve only ever been able to do two shows together, but I’m so glad to get back to it.
“It’s what I always hoped theatre could be, but discovered very quickly was quite rare – a combination of acting and live music.”
- Tam Dean Burn is in The Revelations of Rab McVie at Dundee Rep, March 20-21
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