A show about football? Really?
Yes. But if like me you know nothing about the (allegedly) Beautiful Game, think again. This one is brilliant.
Saltire Sky Theatre’s 1902 is the very fast, very funny story of four friends who inadvisedly borrow money from a gangster to buy Cup Final tickets. Sambo (Nathan Scott-Dunn, writer and co-director), Frankie (Josh Brock) and Zippy (Samuel Lee-Johnston) are horrified when they find out who lent Derek (Deeks) (Calum Manchip) the cash. As Deeks’ frantic attempts to get himself out of the mess he’s in fail more and more spectacularly, he’s forced to accept help from last person he wants to see. His brother Tony.
‘This play was built on the passion, humour, and resilience of working-class communities, the ones who live and breathe every high and low, on and off the pitch. With Hibs celebrating 150 years, there’s no better time to tell their story again, in their city, on their terms. This is theatre for them.’
Nathan Scott-Dunn
1902 opens in the Dog and Duck in Bonnyrigg. A Hibs Supporters banner hangs from one wall. As the play is actually staged in the Pat Stanton Suite of the Hibs’ Supporters Club on Easter Road, Saltire Sky didn’t have to do too much to create the right atmosphere, but they’ve still added a few very apposite ‘finishing touches.’ Check the graffitti on the wall.
The play is full of music, most of it very loud; it even has its own resident musician (Sandy Bain), who warms the audience up (not that it needed much warming – the house was packed with locals out to have a good night) with Proclaimers’ hits, and jokes about that rather larger event taking place up at Murrayfield (‘so you couldn’t get tickets for Oasis then?) The cast are frequently on their feet, charging round the room singing ‘Glory glory to the Hibees’ and various pop songs that they’ve adapted, as football fans frequently do, for their own purposes. Their excitement and energy are palpable. Football is their drug and my goodness are they addicted.
Hibs are in the Scottish Cup Final. The year is 2016, it’s 114 years since their last Cup victory, and Deeks and his friends are determined to see the match. They’re thrilled when Deeks produces the tickets, but rather less than thrilled when they’re told each one cost £250. They’re four unemployed wasters. Where’s that money going to come from? And what’s Craig Turnbull, the notorious crime lord Deeks has taken a loan from, going to do if he doesn’t get paid? I think we can guess.
The interaction between these four idiots is sharp, fast and truly hilarious. None of them has a clue what to do about Turnbull, but that doesn’t stop them trying. Each character is clearly defined from the outset. Josh Brock’s Frankie is particularly funny; accused by the others of being a Jambo (Hearts fan) he’s completely unfazed and just carries on stuffing down the crisps,
‘I can’t help it. It runs in the family.’
The Pat Stanton suite has a bar and a barmaid. It’s open till the show starts, and it’s only then that Rachel Macpherson-Graham morphs into Mags. Much hilarity is made of Mags being Irish and therefore incomprehensible to all but one of the Bonnyrigg Four. Macpherson-Graham shoots out streams of twaddle, but though we may not understand what she’s saying we definitely get the gist. She’s not a woman to be crossed. They’re all scared of her, and so they should be. And when she sits Deeks down for a heart-to-heart, surprise! She’s perfectly intelligible after all. And just wait for her singing – what a voice.
Enter Craig Turnbull. Jonny Tulloch totally inhabits this volatile, terrifying, criminal, bringing great humour to the role without even slightly diluting Turnbull’s menace. The audience loved him – but I’m quite sure none of them would want him to come knocking on their door.
The first hint of something more serious comes with the appearance of Deeks’ brother Tony (Sands Stirling, who also directs.) Is there any family that doesn’t have its share of long held grievances? The boys have history, and soon it’s all spilling out as the two of them hurl accusations at one another. We now begin to understand the roots of Deeks’ barely contained anger – and Tony’s reasons for leaving home.
Nevertheless, Tony offers the only remotely feasible way of getting Deeks off the hook with Turnbull. The initial confrontation between these two hard men keeps up the comedy of what’s gone before, but when things suddenly shift from slapstick to deadly serious, the shock of the change is all the more piercing.
There’s an interval in the play. The cast, however, keep in character throughout the break, walking around, singing, chatting to the audience, even (in Frankie’s case) nicking their crisps. This really keeps the momentum of the show on course; we feel like we’re still in the Dog and Duck.
While the action never leaves that insalubrious room in the pub, there’s a huge amount of riotous physicality in this show. I may never have been to a Cup Final, but after 1902 I felt I had. Every emotion from enthusiasm to euphoria, fear to fury is there, all of them powerfully conveyed by these immensely talented actors. (Hint: Keep your drinks, and your feet, under your seats, and don’t sit in the front row if you don’t like [brief] audience interaction!)
The last scene, in which the lads act out the final moments of the game itself, is a perfect piece of theatre; nail-bitingly tense, hysterically funny, and wonderfully triumphant. At the end of the day, I am told, it’s balls in the back of the net that count, but the end of 1902 gives us all that and more. The Cup Final isn’t the only thing Deeks and co have won, and although there’s been tragedy along the way, they are looking ahead to brighter futures.
Saturday’s audience gave the show a very well deserved standing ovation. Whilst 1902 will naturally appeal to Leithers and Hibs fans, it’s a show that anyone (even football ignoramuses like me) will love. The American girl sitting next to me adored it, and a lady over here from Sydney said she hoped I’d write a good review, as she’d had a fantastic time.
She needn’t have worried. Saltire Sky have once again given their all to give us a perfect production. 1902 celebrates football and its importance to friendship and community, and where better to do so than in the Hibs Supoorters Club? We all went on our way (or on our way to the bar) singing along to Sunshine on Leith with gusto.
1902, written by Nathan Scott-Dunn and directed by him and Sands Stirling, is at the Hibernian Supporters’ Club, Sunnyside (off Easter Rd), Venue 499, at 7.30pm (doors 7pm) every day until 24 August. Please note: there are no shows on Wednesdays 13 and 20 August. The Club is less than 30 minutes walk from the Old Town, or you can take a bus down Easter Road.
Originating in 2016, Saltire Sky have worked to create immersive and lasting theatre experiences that bring stories to the people, specialising in new writing and modern classics. They make theatre for people who don’t go to the theatre. They aim to change stigma and challenge perceptions of what working-class theatre is and can be whilst remaining accessible to those who inspire them.
https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/1902
