“It’s one of those cliches where the stars were aligned,” says Big Country’s Bruce Watson.
He’s reminiscing over the recording of the Dunfermline band’s soundtrack for the 1985 Scottish cult film Restless Natives, which will be revived in stage musical form at Perth Theatre this week.
“Without being asked, I don’t think any of that music would have been heard,” he continues.
He tells me that he and the late Stuart Adamson considered this soundtrack to be their surrogate third album, even though it wasn’t fully released until 1998.
“They go hand-in-hand. It has to have our soundtrack, that movie, and it just works.
“Even now, Martin Compton and Gordon Smart have a podcast called Restless Natives, that’s absolutely amazing.
“And Gerald Butler, a big star, said it was one of his favourite films.”
Why did Restless Natives strike a chord?
Released amid a resurgence in the Scottish film industry, including hits like Bill Forsyth’s Gregory’s Girl and Local Hero, the original Restless Natives had everything you could want from a piece of low-budget Scottish cinema.
Actors Vincent Friell and Joe Mullaney played two unemployed young Edinburgh men who don the disguises of the ‘Clown’ and the ‘Wolf-Man’ to hold up coaches full of American tourists in the Highlands, redistributing the money to the poor.
It was a comedy romp, but it said so much more – about the lack of opportunities during the 1980s, the booming sale of Scotland’s identity for tourist dollars, the emerging nationalism movement and what this said about Scotland’s relationship with itself.
Writer recalls when script ‘went bananas’
Ninian Dunnett was a 23-year-old reporter with Newcastle’s morning paper the Journal when he wrote the film’s first draft, but he was raised and continues to live in Edinburgh.
“I had written some stuff to amuse myself, but had no idea what to do with it,” says Dunnett, now a music academic and lecturer.
“I was in my bank one day and picked up this leaflet for a screenwriting competition, so I fired off this mess. It was only about 30 pages, and I didn’t expect to hear back.
“Of course, it all went bananas when my script won the competition. David Puttnam, then in his pomp as the Oscar-winning producer of Chariots of Fire, chose it.
“Then it was a helter skelter affair.
“It was picked up very quickly for production by EMI, one of the last of the proper big UK film companies.
“And before we knew it we were up in the Highlands making the thing.”
Why make Restless Natives a musical now?
The ongoing legacy of Restless Natives, says Dunnett, took time to emerge.
“When the film came out, there wasn’t a huge fuss,” he says. “There wasn’t an awful lot of media attention and the critics didn’t seem to make much of it. It came and went and we all thought, time to get on with our lives.
“It took years and years to realise that wee film means quite a lot to people, but when the internet came along it became much more apparent.
“There were fan groups and merch started appearing, years after the film had gone. You can get Restless Natives T-shirts and bags and phone cases.
“And then the media, who had never paid much attention, somehow got interested again.
“Suddenly we’re at the Edinburgh Film Festival, which was quite spectacular. You can see how we might start thinking: I wonder if we can do something more with this? Maybe even something better?”
Tunes in show are ‘Big Country-fied’
‘We’ is Dunnett, the film’s original producers and its American director Michael Hoffman, who went on to have a number of US hits after the original (most notably the 1996 Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney vehicle One Fine Day).
He’s also directing this big ensemble musical version, with a cast including Kyle Gardiner and Kirsty MacLaren.
He and Dunnett worked on it via Zoom throughout Covid.
And after a couple of trial script-in-hand readings in London and Perth, the latter theatre enthusiastically agreed to take it on.
With Watson’s blessing, musical director Tim Sutton (who has worked on the National Theatre’s War Horse) came on board to adapt Big Country’s score, a couple of their other hits and some new music to what Dunnett calls the “language” of musical theatre.
“You know how Big Country are famous for their guitars sounding like bagpipes?” asks Dundonian actor Finlay McKillop, who plays Will the Wolfman.
“That feeling is throughout the show. Alongside Big Country tunes you’ll recognise, there’s completely new ones which Tim has ‘Big Countrified’.
“One of the things I love is when something lights a fire in you in the theatre,” he continues.
“Every character in this show has a redemption arc, something they need to achieve. And with my character it’s self-doubt and not believing he’s good enough.
“I really hope people are inspired by what they’re seeing, that it lights a fire in their belly.”
Restless Natives: The Musical is at Perth Theatre from Thursday April 24 until Saturday May 10 2025.
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