Brian Cox's Scottish stage return revealed for new play on Royal Bank of Scotland and Fred Goodwin

Succession star will be starring in the Edinburgh International for the first time since the 1960s

Scottish stage and screen star Brian Cox has revealed he will return to perform in his home country in a major new play exploring the downfall of Royal Bank of Scotland boss Fred Goodwin.

The Dundee-born actor will play the ghost of 18th century economist and philosopher Adam Smith in the "bitingly funny new satire" for the National Theatre of Scotland - which is expected to be one of his final stage roles.

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Actor Brian Cox. Picture: Colin HuttonActor Brian Cox. Picture: Colin Hutton
Actor Brian Cox. Picture: Colin Hutton

Make It Happen by James Graham - the award-winning writer who has brought Margaret Thatcher, Dominic Cummings and Rupert Murdoch to the stage and screen - will recall how RBS was brought to the brink of ruin at the height of the global financial crisis in 2008.

Former RBS workers, political figures and journalists who reported on the rise and fall of the Edinburgh-based bank, which had to be saved by a £45 billion UK Government bailout, have been interviewed as part of Graham's extensive research.

James Graham is writing the new play Make It Happen, which will recall the rise and fall of the Royal Bank of Scotland under chief executive Fred Goodwin. Picture: James Chapelard James Graham is writing the new play Make It Happen, which will recall the rise and fall of the Royal Bank of Scotland under chief executive Fred Goodwin. Picture: James Chapelard
James Graham is writing the new play Make It Happen, which will recall the rise and fall of the Royal Bank of Scotland under chief executive Fred Goodwin. Picture: James Chapelard | James Chapelard

The show, which will realise a long-time ambition of Cox to play the man known as "the father of modern economics," will preview at Dundee Rep in July, where the Succession star began his stage career in 1961 as a 15-year-old, before running at the Festival Theatre during the first week of the Edinburgh International Festival.

His new play is expected to "delve into the unchecked growth, spiralling greed and nail-biting hubris that brought the world's economy to its knees" and explore how the "divisive legacies" of the worldwide financial crash have shaped Britain's political landscape.

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Former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Fred Goodwin was stripped of his knighthood in 2012.Former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Fred Goodwin was stripped of his knighthood in 2012.
Former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Fred Goodwin was stripped of his knighthood in 2012.

However Make It Happen will also trace the roots of RBS - which expanded under Goodwin to become one of the world's biggest banks - back to 18th century Edinburgh, when Smith became one of the key figures in the "Scottish Enlightenment" thanks to his thinking on free trade, self-interest and economic prosperity.

Cox was approached about working with NTS and Dundee Rep after playing Ian Rankin's retired detective John Rebus as part of a series of short films made during Covid restrictions.

Actor Brian Cox. Picture: Colin Hutton Actor Brian Cox. Picture: Colin Hutton
Actor Brian Cox. Picture: Colin Hutton | Colin Hutton

Andrew Panton, Dundee Rep's artistic director, had also been in separate talks with Graham over a potential play on the demise of RBS and Goodwin, who resigned as chief executive in the aftermath of the Government bailout and was later stripped of his knighthood.

The idea of bringing the ghost of Adam Smith into the 21st century story was suggested to Graham by Cox when the pair met up to discuss ideas for working together.

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Director Andrew Panton and writer James Graham are working on the new National Theatre of Scotland production Make It Happen, which will be staged at Dundee Rep at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh this summer. Director Andrew Panton and writer James Graham are working on the new National Theatre of Scotland production Make It Happen, which will be staged at Dundee Rep at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh this summer.
Director Andrew Panton and writer James Graham are working on the new National Theatre of Scotland production Make It Happen, which will be staged at Dundee Rep at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh this summer. | James Chapelard

Cox told The Scotsman: "Adam Smith has been so misquoted. His language was particularly hijacked by people like Margaret Thatcher. He is the antithesis of anything that she believed in.

"I thought it would be quite funny if Adam Smith just turns up in the middle of the financial crisis, but doesn't know why he is there or what the hell is going on.

Succession actor Brian Cox at the King's Theatre in Edinburgh before it closed for its ongoing refurbishent. Picture: Phil Wilkinson.Succession actor Brian Cox at the King's Theatre in Edinburgh before it closed for its ongoing refurbishent. Picture: Phil Wilkinson.
Succession actor Brian Cox at the King's Theatre in Edinburgh before it closed for its ongoing refurbishent. Picture: Phil Wilkinson.

"When he finds out there is a crisis going on he thinks: 'Oh no. They've taken me at my word. They don't know that I am speculating in my writing. My economic ideas are not set in stone.'

"He has a real go at Fred Goodwin and becomes his conscience, in a way."

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Graham's recent work includes Quiz, the stage play and TV show recalling the Who Wants to be a Millionaire? cheating scandal, Dear England, the play inspired by Gareth Southgate's transformation of the England men's football team and the BBC drama Sherwood.

The Nottinghamshire-born writer is working for the National Theatre of Scotland for the first time on the new play, which will also be his first work to be staged at the Edinburgh International Festival, although his involvement with the Fringe goes back around 25 years.

Graham said: "The RBS story is a global story and a nationwide story for Britain, but it also has a specific and unique Scottish angle.

"Edinburgh was always going to be its own character in the show, with the atmosphere of the city, the Athens of the North stuff and the gothic shadows. It demands a hugely theatrical proposition for an epic story.

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"I feel really fortunate to be writing this play. It is like a venn diagram of a lot of my real passions - theatres, Edinburgh, political plays and trying to make sense of the present day by going back to the recent past.

"The mood right now is one of great uncertainty, worry and anxiety about the state of the world. I think you can draw a reasonable straight line back to the legacy of 2008 and it not having been resolved adequately in terms of a reset or realignment of the economy, politics and the model of society. We just sort of limped on.

"A lot of the divisions, anger and frustrations that people have felt in recent years demand looking back to when some of that began. I think that was 2008."

Cox last performed in a play in Scotland with Bill Paterson 10 years ago in a production of Waiting for Godot at the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh and has not appeared in a major NTS production before.

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The new show, which has been commissioned by NTS, Dundee Rep and the EIF, will be Cox's first appearances at the festival since the late 1960s, when he appeared in the Henrik Ibsen plays The Wild Duck and When We Dead Awaken.

Graham said: "Sometimes you have to wait for a way into a story that feels quite familiar and belongs to everybody.

"It was Brian Cox who unlocked it for me with his passion for Adam Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment.

"This story goes back centuries and those ideas were born in the streets of Edinburgh. There was a sort of neatness to me in that capitalism almost died a couple of hundred years later in those very same streets. It is just too delicious as a dramatist to not find a way through that."

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The new play will be Cox's third major stage role in three years, having played the composer Johann Sebastian Bach in The Score in Bath in 2023 and starred in the classic American play Long Day's Journey Into Night in London's West End last year.

He said: "Theatre separates the men from the boys. It's very demanding and I really enjoy it.

"But I am getting a wee bit weary. I don't see myself doing a lot more theatre. I think I'll probably be done with it by 2026.

"This new play is still in construction. There are still a lot of ideas kicking around. The script isn't finalised by any stretch of the imagination."

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