Make it Happen ★★★★

By The Recs JM - James McLuckie 5 months ago

Finance meets satire and light farce in the comic, but sharply observed, corporate caper, Make it Happen, starring Brian Cox

James Graham’s Make it Happen, which enjoyed its world premiere as part of the Edinburgh International Festival, is a slick, savvy retelling of the events leading up to the 2008 collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland. And it’s one delivered with more karaoke and camp flourishes than you might expect from this story.

Frequently lighthearted and peppered with broad comedy, it’s theatre that largely gets by on energy, charm and acting chops. Graham (Quiz, Ink, This House), always a writer with an ear for public mood and political absurdity, largely keeps things compelling even when it’s public knowledge where the story is going. The exposition-heavy second half, where the nuts and bolts of reckless lending and leveraged finance come into focus, inevitably slows the momentum. Graham has done his homework and largely resists the urge to over-explain — but even so, some stretches feel a little like a crash course in corporate finance.

The choice to interweave jukebox hits from the likes of Adele, Keane, Kings of Leon and Franz Ferdinand is a bold one. At times, they bring lift and humour; at others, they seem to interrupt rather than enhance the narrative. One wonders whether quite so many were needed, or if some were included simply because they could be, rather than should be.

When the direction by Andrew Panton occasionally lurches into moments of gothic intensity — shadowy lighting, booming underscoring, ominous projections — the tonal shift jars. That said, it’s difficult to accuse any piece featuring a jazzed-up version of Use Somebody of taking itself too seriously.

Performances in this National Theatre of Scotland and Dundee Rep Theatre co-production are pretty much spot on throughout. Brian Cox (King Lear, The Father, TV’s Succession), as the ghost of imminent economist and philosopher Adam Smith, plays things with a deliciously camp lightness of touch — more panto sage than economic prophet — and is clearly having a ball. Seasoned theatre pro, Sandy Grierson, meanwhile, makes an imminently watchable Fred Goodwin, which is no easy task, given the real man’s well-documented charisma deficit. But Grierson keeps him human, and just elusive enough to remain intriguing, even when he’s at the centre of a scene.

The script is laced with local references, some of which may drift past non-Edinburgh ears. But the piece never gets bogged down in these. Graham’s real interest lies in character dynamics, particularly the imagined exchanges between Goodwin and Smith, which crackle with wit and do a good job of injecting pace and theatricality where the facts alone might have faltered.

At well over two hours, Make it Happen does feel a touch overlong. The energy dips slightly in the final third, as events move towards their well-known conclusion. But while it may not break new ground on themes of hubris, capital, or collapse, the choice to retell this potentially dour tale as satire makes it a resoundingly successful piece of theatre.

A compelling and frequently very funny production you can bank on – ★★★★ 4 stars

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The Recs JM - James McLuckie