What was it like seeing Brian Cox perform at Dundee Rep in Make It Happen?
Just as the sunny optimism of 110% mortgages and boom-time banking was drowned by the 2008 financial crash, the weather on South Tay Street seemed to signal a new chapter – one of reckoning.
It's just a few weeks since I visited Dundee Rep one Friday lunchtime to interview Brian Cox in person about his return to the Dundee stage.
Our wide-ranging conversation included a memorable call from Brian to 'get the f****** High Street sorted out'.
But the question lingered – away from the headlines and soundbites, would the play about the Royal Bank of Scotland's role in the financial crash of 2008 live up to expectations?
As I treated my family to a Saturday night out, the answer was an emphatic 'yes'.
James Graham's Make It Happen is a sharp, darkly comic satire that charts the rise, fall and fail of the Royal Bank of Scotland – once the largest bank in the world.
At its heart is the spirit of economist Adam Smith, summoned from the grave into a Scotland and UK grappling with potential economic ruin.
Played by Brian Cox with thunderous wit and irreverence, Smith becomes the moral counterpoint to Fred 'The Shred' Goodwin, portrayed brilliantly by Sandy Grierson.
Goodwin, with his obsession with power, risk, and global dominance, misquotes Smith to justify his corporate crusade.
Cox's Smith, bemused and exasperated, pushes back – insisting he was a moral philosopher, not a prophet of unregulated capitalism.
His confusion at the modern financial world is both comic and cutting.
Fans of Cox will be delighted that his portrayal of Smith is a 'sweary' one!
But while Cox's performance is magnetic, what I loved was that it never overshadows the ensemble.
Grierson's Goodwin is particularly strong, capturing the banker's chilling arrogance.
The portrayals of former PM Gordon Brown and former chancellor Alistair Darling, in their attempts to stave off financial catastrophe, are nuanced and timely.
'Kirkcaldy has produced a prime minister? F***off!' declares Cox's Smith in another moment of hilarity.
This is not just theatre for those who lived through 2008 and remember the queues outside Northern Rock as people panicked and desperately tried to withdraw their cash.
It speaks equally to a younger generation – my son included, sitting beside me – who was too young to recall the crash, but can clearly grasp the danger of unchecked ambition when it's laid out with such theatrical flair.
The show finds humour in the darkest places. Smith arrives on stage swearing like a trooper, wondering how on earth he got there, then later reappears transformed by a shopping spree at John Lewis – decked out in Adidas trainers and a cap.
Yet for all its wit, the message is sobering: when ego, power and deregulation collide, the fallout is global.
Director Andrew Panton, Dundee Rep's artistic director, ensures the production remains rooted in place and history.
The significance of Cox – who began his career at the old Dundee Rep in 1961 -returning to this stage adds emotional weight to the performance.
Yet as the production moves to the Edinburgh International Festival – set in the very city where RBS rose and teetered on the bring of collapse – its poignancy only grows.
Changes are likely afoot for Edinburgh.
From our vantage point in the back row at Dundee Rep, we overheard the production team – watching it from a punters' perspective – discussing tweaks, including more visual cues linking to Edinburgh and the bank's epic scale.
But one thing is clear: whether in Dundee or Edinburgh, Make It Happen is essential theatre.
Smart, scathing and unexpectedly moving, it captures a defining moment in recent history with clarity, humour and just the right amount of rage.
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