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BBC News
29 minutes ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Brian Cox returns to the Scottish stage as Edinburgh festivals begin
It was the banking disaster which brought a Scottish institution to its knees and sent shockwaves around the world. Now the story of the rise and fall of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has been brought home to Edinburgh in the major new production Make it Happen. Veteran actor Brian Cox, who is starring as the ghost of economist Adam Smith, says at the age of 79 he is focused on protest to "give people a better break".The "biting satire" may be the Edinburgh International Festival's most anticipated play, but it's just one of thousands of shows opening this weekend as the city turns into the world's biggest arts venue for another year. Cox is one of 2,000 artists from 42 countries appearing at this year's International Festival, and there are another 4,000 shows in The Fringe, including 500 not registered in time for the publication of the 2025 he played megalomaniac billionaire Logan Roy in TV drama Succession, the actor says his Dundee childhood has given him a focus on the other end of the wealth spectrum. "People forget their roots," Cox told me as he joined EIF director Nicola Benedetti for the world premiere of Make It Happen - a collaboration between the National Theatre of Scotland, Dundee Rep and the festival. "Your roots are so important to you, and that's why I prize my upbringing in Dundee," he asked to play the role of the 18th Century Scot, regarded as the father of modern economics thanks to his book The Wealth of the play suggests it's an earlier book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, that was more representative of his philosophy. "There's a line in the play where he says, 'capitalism, I don't even know what that means'," Cox explained. "He saw himself as a moral philosopher. He did not see himself as other people saw him. It was the conditions in which people lived that concerned him."Reflecting on his tough upbringing in Dundee, Cox rejects the suggestion it was "terrible"."No, it wasn't - it was a learning experience. Yeah, it was tough. It was as tough as hell."You know, when your dad's dead when you're eight, and then you've got a mum who goes through a series of nervous breakdowns and has electric shock treatment, I mean, when she goes from a healthy 10-stone down to just over five-stone, you know, it's just appalling."But you live with it. You learn. But you do need people to say, 'let's give people the best advantage'. And that is not happening." At the age of 79, Cox shows no signs of easing up. After the play, he will embark on a national tour of a one man show based around his memoir and he has just directed his first film. Glenrothan - a family drama about a Scots whisky company starring Alan Cumming and Shirley Henderson - will be released next year."I'm a certain age now," he admits. "The end is much nearer than the beginning. So I just feel that all I can do is protest."I can't do much more than protest, but I do protest because I believe that we need to give people a better break than we give them."Cox first committed himself to this play about the financial crisis several years ago, when Andrew Panton was appointed as director of Dundee Rep."We first spoke at the opening of V&A Dundee," Cox said. "He was keen to return to the Rep and do a play but we didn't know what that would be."Then Covid happened, which put a pause on everything, and we realised we needed a play which would bring people flocking back to the theatre." Make it Happen was suggested by Dundee Rep's chairman Dr Susan Hetrick, who'd worked at RBS just before the financial crisis and is now an expert in toxic culture in the workplace."You don't imagine that you're going to be working in an organisation, particularly one that was as well regarded as RBS, and 15 years later that you'd be looking at this on stage," she said."How something so successful, that was so lauded by academics and by business schools, could collapse."Trying to understand what happened in the organisation, but also within the economy and society, is so important and I think there's a lot of lessons and a lot of insights that we can take from it."At the centre of the play is Fred Goodwin, played by Sandy Grierson. A former accountant from Paisley nicknamed Fred the Shred, Goodwin was headhunted to RBS to help build the biggest bank in the world. And for a time, it was. He shifted the bank's traditional New Town headquarters to a greenfield site at Gogarburn near Edinburgh Airport which housed 3,000 staff, tennis courts, a medical centre and a corporate jet."The character that James Graham has written is fascinating," Sandy said."It shifts from the bespectacled auditor to that Reservoir Dogs style, strutting around Gogarburn."He's a product of the times, especially for a working class lad from Paisley."It would be easy to present Goodwin, who was stripped of his knighthood but retained his pension, as a pantomime villain. Or as a scapegoat. But Sandy believes the play asks wider questions of society."To what extent does it get caught up in a mood and a time? People thought that the bankers in the high finance tribe had solved it."They thought it was like alchemy. They were on top of the world until the alchemy came crashing down."
The Herald Scotland
2 days ago
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
Is there any way to protect pensions, or must we suffer?
I had a reasonable pension pot saved through company and personal contributions. Come the sub-prime con trick and RBS's implosion, I, like thousands of others, lost a sizeable amount of my savings. I have a son who lives and works Down Under. When Donald Trump introduced his first round of tariff controls, my son lost over $100,000 NZ from his fund. Doubtless this will have recovered since as stock markets have apparently factored in this potential volatility and recovered. But with the UK FT-100 index now at over 9000 points, can it be sustained? Economic cycles recur in a predictable time scale and the next collapse is possibly overdue. If and when there is the next downward adjustment, or crash, what then for private pension funds? (Among lots of other critical economic factors.) Does capitalism have an answer? Or will the hedge fund managers just keep profiting? Ian Gray, Croftamie. Read more letters Increase IT use for pupils Although your article on Holyrood's approach to workload in schools ("Teaching union dismisses AI toolkit"; [[The Herald]], July 29) showed a tiny insight from the Scottish Government on the needs of teachers, it seemed sadly out of touch with the potential scale of change required in meeting the march of electronic processing. The culture of Scottish education remains strangely ossified when determining who should be the client when addressing the place of technology in schools. As we approach the end of the first quarter of the new century I would have thought that by now we would have witnessed a complete revolution in individualised learning through the aid of effective and efficient technology. Modern computers are remarkable teaching machines and in a number of school subjects or topics within subjects, a qualified teacher could be replaced with an IT coach/mentor. In this way some teachers would become more of a professional learning consultant and monitor. The £1 million quoted as available to ease workload would be better spent on developing pupil software for programmed learning and this would assist in the long-term solution being sought. Bill Brown, Milngavie. Council's scheme could be rubbish Councillor Paul Carey is quite right to ask where the millions Glasgow City Council has raked in by charging for garden waste collections is being spent ("Glasgow's rubbish bin millions: what has the money been spent on?", [[The Herald]], July 26), but it's only half of the story. Every tonne of garden waste separated by householders saves the council around £155 in landfill charges (including Landfill Tax at over £126). Conversely if householders aren't prepared to pay to get their brown bin emptied, they are entitled to put garden waste into their residual waste bin or take it to the council's waste recycling centres. The first option means increased disposal costs that will appear on the cleansing services' balance sheets, while the second presumes that everybody has access to the transport required. There's also the possibility that some people might simply fly-tip their garden waste. Has anybody in the council done some research to see if their waste disposal costs have increased due to these charges? If not, it's a bit premature to boast about the additional revenue these have generated. And if the disposal costs have in fact risen, surely the income from charging has to be set against these? John Crawford, Preston. Fall in BBC standards Over the last few days we've seen perfect examples of how far BBC technical standards on Radio Scotland have fallen. On interviews between Glasgow and Turnberry and Aberdeenshire links have dropped or became so distorted that they were useless; this from the BBC, who invented outside broadcasts. Seamlessly anchoring the Six O'Clock News from a war zone like Ukraine doesn't seem to be difficult but it frequently falls apart here. Stuart Neville, Clydebank. Remembering Dr Calman I was very sad to hear of the death of Sir Kenneth Calman ("Sir Kenneth Calman, chair of Scotland's devolution commission, dies aged 83", The Herald, July 24). I was a junior nurse in the Western Infirmary in the 1960s when he was a resident doctor. In those days the resident doctor had a room just off the ward and seemed to be on 24 hours a day. They probably did have some time off, but it was pretty full on. At night we would have to go and rouse them if there was an emergency or a new admission. Often we would have several attempts to waken weary doctors, but not Kenny. He had a very unassuming manner, was such a pleasure to work with and was lovely to the patients. A lovely and exceptional man. Margaret Lancaster, Biggar. Sir Kenneth Calman, whose death was announced last week (Image: Getty) Market research David Edgar (Letters, July 28) asks what is the meaning of "brought to market". will tell Mr Edgar how to do so in 11 steps; phew! That would not in any case answer Mr Edgar's question. Further research reveals that bringing to market is the process of transforming an idea into a marketable, sellable product. It involves brainstorming, researching, network building, and building marketing strategies. I suppose that that is gobbledegook for what estate agents do, except that it still does not answer Mr Edgar's question about whether these properties are ever offered for sale. Good luck to Mr Edgar should he bring his own property to market. David Miller, Milngavie. Living in a different world John Jamieson's letter (July 29) reminded me of the story of the 1980s Everton defender who, unhappy at the terms of a proposed new contract, told his manager he had agreed to to join Cape Town FC. 'But what about the Apartheid?' asked his boss. 'Aye, it's no' bad,' said the defender. 'Three bedrooms, all en suite. Magic!'. Alec Ross, Stranraer.
The Herald Scotland
3 days ago
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
More economic trouble is coming. And there's only one escape route
Unfortunately, although politicians say they like economic growth they generally have no idea how to nurture it and often act in ways which seem designed to slow the economy down. The UK Government's latest Employment Rights Bill is a perfect example. There are many things which encourage faster growth: a stable and not stifling regulatory regime, opportunity, social attitudes to wealth creation. In general the direction of travel for these factors is unhelpful but there is another obvious key factor - arguably more powerful than all the rest - which is curiously overlooked. That is the availability of money. For an entrepreneur to turn a great idea into a fledging business takes money and to grow that business into a company which creates jobs and wealth takes more money still. If we look back to the last period of really strong growth in the UK economy, the mid-1980s to about 2007, a lot of favourable factors were at play but the one which mattered most was that money was available in a way which it isn't today. During that time of strong growth Scotland was extraordinarily lucky to have the Bank of Scotland as its key economic facilitator. RBS may have been bigger but it never fostered growth in the same way as the Bank of Scotland did. A business person needing money for growth could go to see their local bank manager, who actually existed and whose job was to grow the bank's business from their branch. If the amount needed was bigger, you went up to the Head Office on the Mound to see somebody, probably called Gavin, Peter or Colin, who took time to understand your business and provided funding to support its growth. There would have been no Stagecoach or Sports Division able to grow rapidly whilst the founders retained control without Bank of Scotland providing finance based not on lending against assets but against the expected cashflows of the business. No public subsidy was involved, no stupid questionnaires to make sure woke targets were being met, just sensible people making commercial decisions which enabled hundreds of companies to get off the ground and grow. Read more It's time to cast aside prejudice and go for the cash Can anyone truly say the Scottish Parliament been a great success? I can't Who will tell the truth? Economically, we are in a mess The financial crisis of 2008 put paid to all that funding for growth and it has never been replaced. What sank RBS and HBOS was not supporting entrepreneurs but the same good old mistake behind almost all banking crises: too much lending against overvalued property. The price of the state bailout though was the dismantling of a support system which had served us well. The UK and Scottish Governments have tried to put in place schemes which provide sources of investment. The SEIS and EIS schemes where investors receive tax relief when investing in young companies is effective, the various government-backed banks including the Scottish National Investment Bank, rather less so. These new schemes provide equity finance whereas most entrepreneurs want debt; they don't want to give up too much control of their companies. Where debt finance is available for companies it now nearly always requires a personal guarantee from the directors of the borrower which acts as a deterrent and negates the whole point of having a limited liability company. What is needed to increase significantly the supply of money to fund growth is to switch the banking system back on as a major provider of risk funding. This won't happen on its own, the UK Government has to give it a shove. The former Bank of Scotland HQ on The Mound (Image: Newsquest) Each of our banks should be given targets for entrepreneurial lending and their progress monitored and reported on regularly. Entrepreneurial lending needs to be defined but its definition should be broad: lending to a company of up to £10million, the company must be a trading company and not own property or land. No personal guarantees allowed. Keep it simple. What the bank should get in return for this lending is that the interest and fees they earn are not subject to corporation tax. One or more banks will see the opportunity to get tax-free revenue by extending loans which are risker in order to help businesses grow. The regulator's instinct to do everything possible to stop such lending must be curbed. Mistakes must be allowed to be made. Not a spectacular initiative for a politician to announce, no ribbons for them to cut but if something like this was introduced it really would help growth.
RTÉ News
6 days ago
- Business
- RTÉ News
NatWest reports 18% rise in first-half profit, announces £750m buyback
NatWest's first-half profit rose a slightly better than expected 18% as it grew loans and deposits, it said today, allowing the British lender to announce a fresh share buyback worth £750m. The British bank said operating pretax profit for the January to June period was £3.6 billion, compared with the average of analysts' forecasts compiled by the bank of £3.46 billion. The lender upgraded its key profit performance guidance for this year, saying it now expects to achieve a return on tangible equity of 16.5%, from previous guidance of up to 16%. The upbeat earnings report followed a similarly strong performance announced by rival Lloyds earlier this week, thanks in part to resilience from British households and businesses in the face of a murky economic outlook. The bank's buyback announcement was in line with the £730m that analysts had predicted, and could further boost shares that have already risen 47% in the last year. NatWest on May 30 announced its return to full private ownership, ending a costly, taxpayer-funded UK government investment that dated back to its rescue in the 2008 crisis. The bank, then known as RBS, has since transformed from a sprawling global investment bank into a domestic-focused corporate and retail bank, meaning it has been largely insulated from the market turmoil surrounding US President Donald Trump's trade tariffs. After nearly two decades of shrinking its business, it has begun to snap up rivals, buying the banking arm of supermarket retailer Sainsbury's in June last year amid a wider wave of consolidation in Britain's financial industry. That deal added £2.2 billion in customer balances for NatWest in the second quarter, it said, helping its overall £8 billion of loan growth in the period. Such borrowing, coupled with relatively low impairments, has helped allay fears for now that Britain's slow economic growth and sticky inflation would stifle businesses and drive them and mortgage borrowers into default. Competition is likely to intensify further this year following Santander's acquisition of TSB, which created a scale rival to incumbents like NatWest and Lloyds.
Daily Record
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Record
Brian Cox takes on role of Adam Smith in new show set for Fringe
The Dundee-born star, who played fearsome media tycoon bully Logan Roy in TV hit Succession, is returning to Scotland for his scariest role in decades It was the banking disaster that brought an old Scottish institution to its knees and sent shockwaves around the globe in the worst financial collapse of modern times. Now actor Brian Cox has set his sights on tormenting the man responsible for it. The Dundee-born star, who played fearsome media tycoon bully Logan Roy in TV hit Succession, is returning to Scotland for his scariest role in decades – as a ghost of one of the country's most famous sons. And Fred 'The Shred' Goodwin is his target. Cox plays the spectre of Adam Smith, known as the father of modern economics, returning from beyond his 18th century grave to haunt Goodwin, who became one of the most reviled figures in modern Scottish history after his role in the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland. Smith was a key figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, when Edinburgh became a centre of modern philosophy, elevating figures like him, David Hume and James Hutton and their progressive view of civilisation on to the world stage and into history. And for the 79-year-old actor, haunting the shamed banker from beyond the grave is the theatre role of a lifetime. Cox, who suggested he played the part of Smith himself, said: ' Fred Goodwin was unbelievably self-serving with his singularity of purpose. He certainly wasn't serving his community. 'This guy said he was a follower of Adam Smith but he got it all wrong. Smith wrote two books, The Theory of Moral Sentiments and then The Wealth of Nations, which was all about how wealth is distributed and who it is distributed to. 'When people think about Adam Smith now, they often think it was all about economics. But it was also about moral welfare. And the reason Goodwin got it all wrong was because he only followed only the second book. He didn't see the books in relation to one another. And the degree of selfishness that Goodwin pursued almost destroyed the RBS.' Cox plays the ghost of the celebrated thinker in a new tragi-comedy by award-winning writer James Graham, opposite Sandy Grierson as the banker responsible for the financial cataclysm. Dubbed Make it Happen, the National Theatre of Scotland production opened on Friday in the actor's home town of Dundee, and transfers to Edinburgh for the International Festival next month. Cox said: 'It's 16 years since 2008 so there's enough time passed now to tell the story. It deals with Fred's election right through to his demise. James Graham's script is pure satire. It's brilliant. 'Adam Smith has been summoned as a spirit because Goodwin has made such a mess of things. He's been summoned up because he's the guy who holds the truth. It's told in an original way and it's very funny. Smith came from Kirkcaldy and he can't believe the town produced a prime minister in Gordon Brown. 'It shows the folly of human nature, how we simply don't progress, and how greed is such a curse of who we are. Always wanting more.' The impact of the so-called economic downturn of 2008 can still be felt today after Brown's government pumped £45billion into the stricken bank, recovering only £35billion since. Goodwin had his knighthood removed but retained his £700,000 pension. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. Playwright Graham describes watching the role of then-chancellor Alistair Darling with PM Brown as 'a huge Shakespearean rise and fall'. He said: '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.' Cox moved to London from the US with his wife Nicole earlier this year but still gets emotional when talking about his home city. Despite major cultural successes such as Dundee Rep, the V&A Museum and Dundee Centre for Contemporary Arts, the city has suffered a rise in social problems, mainly linked to addiction. Last year a national report revealed a 92 per cent rise in drug-related deaths since 2013. Cox said: 'I've been critical about what's going on in Dundee and I can't keep my mouth shut about it. It goes back to the social engineering decades ago when they moved people out of the cities. 'They did it in Glasgow then they did it in Dundee. You lived with your neighbour for 40 years and then they moved you out and made sure those neighbours didn't live together again. 'A city is the people and when you move them into the outskirts it leads to drug addiction then criminality because that's what happens when there aren't enough community elements in place.' Cox has held the Tayside city close, filming BBC Scotland comedy Bob Servant there in the 2010s. He even shot an episode of Succession in the city but admits he was annoyed when Logan Roy's background was changed mid-series. He said: 'I always said he could be Scottish but they insisted American. For nine episodes he was from the States, and from the first episode we were celebrating his birthday and he gave a speech saying he had come from Quebec, which is obviously Canada, not the US. 'Then in the ninth episode of the first series, they suddenly tell me Logan's from Dundee. I was really angry about that. I went up to Jessie and asked him what was going on and he said, 'We thought it would be a little surprise.' Well it was a hell of a surprise. 'I've been playing the part in one direction and then in the ninth episode I'm suddenly a Dundonian. The thinking was that he left Dundee when he was three or four, as part of the transport of kids who went from Scotland to Canada at the start of the war. I accepted that. But it was ridiculous.' Cox is breaking unfamiliar ground with Make It Happen, testing his range in singing. "I have a duet with Sandy Grierson, apparently,' he said. 'I used to sing when I was younger, and my son is a very good singer but I got nervous about it when the acting all kicked off. I would have liked to have sung earlier on.' ● Make It Happen is at Dundee Rep until July 26 then at Edinburgh Festival Theatre from July 30 to August 9.
