EIF Make It Happen Festival Theatre Edinburgh 4th August 2025 Review
“Make It Happen” is at the Festival Theatre Edinburgh until 09 August, and this satire of the rise and fall of The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and in particular its CEO Fred Goodwin AKA “Fred The Shred” is one of the flagship productions of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival.
Written by James Graham (Sherwood, Dear England) and directed by the award-winning Andrew Panton, this production also sees the return to the Scottish stage for the first time in a decade of Brian Cox with his portrayal of Fred Goodwin’s hero and unsuspecting mentor, Adam Smith. Could Adam Smith, or any leading figure in the Scottish Enlightenment have imagined that his seminal work “The Wealth of Nations” would have played such a large part in creating the world of the 20th and early 21st century or that one man of enormous influence and power would make this his personal bible whilst at the same time ignoring the second part of the philosophical debate, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”?
Brian Cox is clearly not only enjoying his return to the Scottish stage, but having a lot of fun with his role here as Adam Smith, and his interpretation of him is full of humour and more than a few surprises whilst at the same time giving this Adam Smith both a powerful presence on stage and strong moral compass to act as an enlightened mirror to the actions of Fred Goodwin. A big part of the success of this Adam Smith on stage is of course down to the skilful writing of James Graham, but when you combine that with someone who is as gifted a performer as Brian Cox, a little bit of stage magic can happen. Here Adam Smith visits Fred Goodwin as a ghost of fiscal reform and the overtones of Marley’s Ghost in Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” are, for me, hard to escape, but here this twist to an old story device (long before Dickens too) works well.
The role of Fred Goodwin is taken on by Sandy Grierson, and his performance throughout tonight was impressive for many different reasons. Perhaps the most important one was that his portrayal of a man who had no apparent limits to his ambitions or, it seems, any concern whatsoever for the many people who would suffer directly due to his decisions is what, when counterbalanced against the humanity of Adam Smith, really made this production work for me. Yes, there were many other fine performances on stage tonight but at its heart this really was the Brian Cox (Adam Smith) and Sandy Grierson (Fred Goodwin) show, and without the dynamics of these two people working so well together, this could easily have been a rather dry and dusty stage production. Good direction and a very good script of course gave “Make It Happen” the solid foundations that were needed here, but so often this was about timing and subtle interpretation of the script through small gestures of body language, and Brian Cox and Sandy Grierson were both able to breathe real life into their characters.
There is a lot happening on stage visually here and a lot that can easily be missed. A lot of that information is the visual projections that are constantly shifting to match the story line, but often it is very subtle with the ever growing in size blue globe as RBS blue takes over the world in financial terms.
“Make It Happen” is a satire, and to achieve its goals a degree of creative licence has to be allowed. Although there are very few people who would have been at the centre of the RBS world or the wider banking/financial institutional world of the times, anyone who is old enough to remember this banking crisis will not have forgotten the extraordinary measures that were taken by the UK, and other governments, to literally prevent a global economic meltdown that would have impacted negatively on the lives so many people. To stop the then biggest bank in the world literally running out of money in a few hours, the previously unthinkable had to become reality.
This is a work of theatre with many different faces. Of course there is satire, but the production is also a mixture of dramatic and musical performances, and at times this does lighten the subject matter and create moments of unexpected humour that takes the sharp edge from what happens when the creation of wealth has no concern for the greater good of society in a wider sense than the immediate people who are benefitting from it. Important questions are raised here too, and one of the most important is just what is money, what is wealth. Here they both seem to be nothing more than a sleight of hand conjuring trick performed by the world’s financial institutions as they try to convince us all that their printed sheets of paper have real value, that we hold in our hands real money, real wealth.
“Make it Happen” is one of those rare productions that makes you think as its story line unfolds and, sadly for me, it has a message too, and that is that lessons have not been learned and that human greed and ambitions are setting the dominos in stage once again for an even bigger financial crash in the years to come.
"Make it Happen" is co-produced by Edinburgh International Festival, National Theatre of Scotland and Dundee Rep Theatre.
Review by Tom King © 2025
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
Written by James Graham (Sherwood, Dear England) and directed by the award-winning Andrew Panton, this production also sees the return to the Scottish stage for the first time in a decade of Brian Cox with his portrayal of Fred Goodwin’s hero and unsuspecting mentor, Adam Smith. Could Adam Smith, or any leading figure in the Scottish Enlightenment have imagined that his seminal work “The Wealth of Nations” would have played such a large part in creating the world of the 20th and early 21st century or that one man of enormous influence and power would make this his personal bible whilst at the same time ignoring the second part of the philosophical debate, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”?
Brian Cox is clearly not only enjoying his return to the Scottish stage, but having a lot of fun with his role here as Adam Smith, and his interpretation of him is full of humour and more than a few surprises whilst at the same time giving this Adam Smith both a powerful presence on stage and strong moral compass to act as an enlightened mirror to the actions of Fred Goodwin. A big part of the success of this Adam Smith on stage is of course down to the skilful writing of James Graham, but when you combine that with someone who is as gifted a performer as Brian Cox, a little bit of stage magic can happen. Here Adam Smith visits Fred Goodwin as a ghost of fiscal reform and the overtones of Marley’s Ghost in Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” are, for me, hard to escape, but here this twist to an old story device (long before Dickens too) works well.
The role of Fred Goodwin is taken on by Sandy Grierson, and his performance throughout tonight was impressive for many different reasons. Perhaps the most important one was that his portrayal of a man who had no apparent limits to his ambitions or, it seems, any concern whatsoever for the many people who would suffer directly due to his decisions is what, when counterbalanced against the humanity of Adam Smith, really made this production work for me. Yes, there were many other fine performances on stage tonight but at its heart this really was the Brian Cox (Adam Smith) and Sandy Grierson (Fred Goodwin) show, and without the dynamics of these two people working so well together, this could easily have been a rather dry and dusty stage production. Good direction and a very good script of course gave “Make It Happen” the solid foundations that were needed here, but so often this was about timing and subtle interpretation of the script through small gestures of body language, and Brian Cox and Sandy Grierson were both able to breathe real life into their characters.
There is a lot happening on stage visually here and a lot that can easily be missed. A lot of that information is the visual projections that are constantly shifting to match the story line, but often it is very subtle with the ever growing in size blue globe as RBS blue takes over the world in financial terms.
“Make It Happen” is a satire, and to achieve its goals a degree of creative licence has to be allowed. Although there are very few people who would have been at the centre of the RBS world or the wider banking/financial institutional world of the times, anyone who is old enough to remember this banking crisis will not have forgotten the extraordinary measures that were taken by the UK, and other governments, to literally prevent a global economic meltdown that would have impacted negatively on the lives so many people. To stop the then biggest bank in the world literally running out of money in a few hours, the previously unthinkable had to become reality.
This is a work of theatre with many different faces. Of course there is satire, but the production is also a mixture of dramatic and musical performances, and at times this does lighten the subject matter and create moments of unexpected humour that takes the sharp edge from what happens when the creation of wealth has no concern for the greater good of society in a wider sense than the immediate people who are benefitting from it. Important questions are raised here too, and one of the most important is just what is money, what is wealth. Here they both seem to be nothing more than a sleight of hand conjuring trick performed by the world’s financial institutions as they try to convince us all that their printed sheets of paper have real value, that we hold in our hands real money, real wealth.
“Make it Happen” is one of those rare productions that makes you think as its story line unfolds and, sadly for me, it has a message too, and that is that lessons have not been learned and that human greed and ambitions are setting the dominos in stage once again for an even bigger financial crash in the years to come.
"Make it Happen" is co-produced by Edinburgh International Festival, National Theatre of Scotland and Dundee Rep Theatre.
Review by Tom King © 2025
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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