Dundee-born and bred Succession star Brian Cox is returning to the stage in his home city to play the ghost of Scottish economist Adam Smith in a new production about the Royal Bank of Scotland’s role in the financial collapse of 2008.
The Dundee actor, who played Logan Roy in four series of the hit US drama, will appear in Make It Happen, which will transfer to the Edinburgh International Festival this summer.
The show, written by multi-award winning English playwright James Graham, sees Cox returning to his hometown to haunt key Scottish figures of the financial crash including Alasdair Darling, Gordon Brown and Fred ‘the shred’ Goodwin, the former chief of the Royal Bank of Scotland.
The show takes its title from the former slogan of the ill-fated bank which received a £45.5bn bail out by the UK government 17 years ago.
Billed as a satirical comedy, the production, staged by the Edinburgh International Festival, National Theatre of Scotland and Dundee Rep, is one of the key highlights of the National Theatre of Scotland’s 2025 programme launch.
It also features a new play about the Lockerbie atrocity featuring music by Dundee-born Deacon Blue frontman Ricky Ross, as well as new shows addressing Gaelic culture and the legacy of Scotland’s mining towns.
Where did Brian Cox get the idea from?
Emmy winner Cox, who’s been a regular interviewee of The Courier, said: “It was an idea I had about the financial crisis when I thought, ‘what if Adam Smith had suddenly popped up in the middle of the 2008 financial crisis?’
“So I sold James Graham on the idea of this guy from the 17th century facing the horrendousness of the 21st century.
“It’s about how Fred Goodwin went on a fantasy trip and screwed up big time because he didn’t read what Adam was writing. Thatcher did the same, she was constantly misquoting him.
“Goodwin has done so much damage and it will take a long time to reverse it because so much trust has been lost in our financial institutions.
“In many ways it needed to happen, and it fell on his shoulders because of his personality and the level of denial.
“He was very exposed.”
Adam Smith portrayal compared to Charles Dickens’ ‘ghost of Christmas past’
Cox said the character of Smith, who became known as the father of capitalism and economic theory for his influence on the Scottish Enlightenment of the 17th century, will have echoes of Jacob Marley’s ghost in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in the production to be directed by Fife-raised Andrew Panton, who grew up in Burntisland..
“I thought it would be quite funny. It’s a comic idea,” he said.
“It’s a story that hasn’t been dealt with, and the Edinburgh Festival is the perfect place to do it.
“It’s a story about the truth, and how if you vacillate from the truth it always bites you on the bottom in the end.
“It wasn’t just Fred Goodwin’s crisis at the time, it was global crisis, but he was found to be severely lacking. I hope people see how ludicrous it was.”
He added: “It’s a very Scottish subject and it couldn’t be a better fit than doing this with the Scottish national theatre.
“You want to tell this story on home turf. Royal Bank of Scotland’s headquarters are in Edinburgh.”
Career of Brian Cox began at Dundee Rep
Cox’s first job in theatre was at Dundee Rep in 1961 aged 14.
His first appearance on stage was in The Dover Road a year later, and he went on to work as a stage manager at the Rep before it burned down in a fire in 1963.
He went on to join the company at Edinburgh Lyceum before moving to London to study at Lamda.
He has gone on to become one of the country’s most prolific and enduring stars, with a string of roles in film, TV and theatre.
Olivier-award winning playwright James Graham, who has been working on the idea for a show about the 2008 crash for several years, added: “Seismic shifts happen every 30 years or so – the end of WWII, the fall of the Berlin Wall and so on.
“It has always amazed me that there hasn’t really been any change in society’s model after 2008. We just limped on with the same structures. I wanted to examine that.
“These characters like Fred Goodwin, Alasdair Darling, Gordon Brown, these mighty Scottish figures, all go on this huge Shakespearean rise and fall.
“Having Brian as Adam Smith was the last part of the puzzle to make it happen.”
How and when to see Make It Happen
Make It Happen is described as an epic new satirical play by acclaimed playwright James Graham, directed by Andrew Panton, artistic director of Dundee Rep Theatre.
It will preview at Dundee Rep in late July and at the International Festival on July 30 and 31.
The opening performance of the 2025 Edinburgh International Festival then takes place on Friday August 1, running until Saturday August 9.
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