Historic theatre to reopen for first time in three years as Restless Natives musical launches 'pop-up season'


It is the classic Scottish comedy about two Edinburgh teenagers who become unlikely folk heroes for holding up tourist coaches heading through the Highlands - wearing masks from a joke shop.
Now a new stage musical version of Restless Natives, the much-loved 1980s cinematic caper, which was extensively shot around the Scottish capital, is to reopen one its most historic venues.
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Hide AdThe new production will provide the curtain-raiser for a "pop-up summer season" at Leith Theatre, the 93-year-old building which was almost destroyed by a World War II bomb blast and was almost sold off by the city council after falling into decline.


Restless Natives: The Musical will see the return of aspiring outlaws Will and Ronnie, who set off for the countryside on a motorbike from Wester Hailes to pursue a dream of becoming Highland highwaymen.
The team behind the original feature film - writer Ninian Dunnett, director Michael Hoffman and producer Andy Paterson - is reuniting to create the new musical, which has been in the planning for at least five years.
The musical will feature the songs of Big Country, the Scottish rock band who provided the stirring soundtrack to the 1985 movie, which starred Vincent Friell and Joe Mullaney as Will and Ronnie.
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Hide AdThe stage show, which is set in the 1980s, will visit Leith Theatre for several weeks in June as part of a Scottish tour which will include runs in Perth, Inverness, Stirling, Aberdeen, Inverness and Glasgow.
However the producers of the show have reached an agreement with the Leith Theatre Trust, which is pursuing plans to reopen the council-owned venue permanently, which will see temporary facilities installed for the musical remain in the building until the end of August.
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It is hoped three months of shows and events will fill Leith Theatre’s 1600-capacity main auditorium and the adjacent Thomas Morton Hall, which can accommodate audiences up to 180, in the most extensive programme of shows at the venue for decades.
The line-up, which is expected to feature theatre, music and film events, will offer a "glimpse into the future" of the venue and a showcase of its potential ahead of a planned multi-million refurbishment of the building, which dates back to 1932.
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Hide AdJust two major theatre productions have been staged at Leith Theatre in recent years.


The venue played host to The Last Days of Mankind, an epic anti-war satire featuring actors from across Europe, in 2018, while audiences returned to the building following the lifting of Covid restrictions in 2022 for the National Theatre of Scotland’s theatre-film hybrid project The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
However the venue was last in regular use for theatre productions in 1988, when it also hosted the UK premiere of the Mark-Anthony Turnage opera Greek.
The B-listed building dates back to 1932, when it was built as "a gift from the people of Edinburgh" following the city's controversial merger with Leith.
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Built between 1929 and 1931, the main auditorium was badly damaged by a bomb blast in 1941 and remained closed until 1961.
It would go on to become one of the Edinburgh International Festival's most important venues, as well as a key stop-off for pop and rock acts like Mott the Hoople, Thin Lizzy, Slade, AC/DC, John Martyn, Dr Feelgood and Kraftwerk.


However by the late 1980s the building's condition had declined so badly it had fallen out of use completely and it was eventually earmarked for sale in 2004, before a local campaign forced a rethink from the city council.
The Leith Theatre Trust was formed in 2008 and has since negotiated lease agreements with the city council which have allowed the charity to open the building on a temporary basis for events as well as pursue the long-term redevelopment plans.
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The temporary reopening of the venue has been confirmed after around 18 months of early repair and investigative works around the building while plans for a full-scale refurbishment are being developed.
Chief executive Lynn Morrison said the trust was first approached by the musical's producers last May about the possibility of theatre reopening to host the show.
She said: "It was really important for us to get them to see what the venue is like, feel the atmosphere in the space, see where Leith Theatre is on its journey and whether it is right for the show.


"We get so many enquiries that the building just isn't ready for yet. We had months of discussions towards what it would look like here and how to make it work.
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Hide Ad"We are not a technically-equipped theatre at the moment, so a lot of temporary facilities will be brought in for a full pop-up summer season which will open with Restless Natives: The Musical.
"It will be quite similar to how it has worked with the Edinburgh International Festival in the past, but over a longer period of time.”
This year marks the 40th anniversary of Restless Natives, which see Will and Ronnie secure celebrity status as "the Clown and the Wolfman" while they are being pursued across the Highlands by the police, before a famous finale through their home city.
Key Edinburgh locations used in the film include the historic harbour at Newhaven, The Mound, the Lawnmarket, Princes Street Gardens, Vicotoria Terrace, Clovenstone and Wester Hailes.
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Hide AdMr Paterson, who is the lead producer on Restless Natives: The Musical, said: "It's quite amazing to think that it was 40 years ago that we made the film in Edinburgh, with the memories of that final ride through Edinburgh and down The Mound, and all of the restrictions on where we could and couldn't go."
“By the end of the sequence, half of Edinburgh was chasing the Clown and the Wolfman across Princes Street and up Frederick Street. It's one of my great memories of filmmaking.
"We came up with the idea of doing a musical just before lockdown, which was then strangely a very good time to think it through.
"We're all big fans of musicals. Restless Natives felt like a story that we wanted to be told as a musical. It's a very emotional story and it has the Big Country soundtrack underpinning it.
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Hide Ad"We wrote down the names of 12 songs that we felt would feel like proper musical theatre and that the songs could do the work in the show.
“We feel there is something very special about the feeling of Restless Natives. Where the show was going to be on in Edinburgh was very important to us.
“The second we walked into Leith Theatre it felt right for Restless Natives. We couldn't believe that this place existed and wasn't being used.
"It feels incredible as soon as you walk through the doors because of the scale of it. It has a wonderful stage, acoustic and a sense of wanting to put a show on here.”
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The venue, which has been on the UK's official "Theatres at Risk" register since 2016, was reopened temporarily the following year for the first time in nearly 30 years for the city's Hidden Door festival.
It was used twice again by Hidden Door and three times by the Edinburgh International Festival, as part of its live music programme, but has not hosted any major public events since the last EIF season there in 2022.
The venue has since been used for film and TV productions, including the BBC series The Big Scottish Book Club and The Bidding Room.
Ms Morrison said: “We have had so many blocks of renovation and investigation works in the building over the last two years.
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Hide Ad“This three-month opportunity to get audiences back in really came along at the right time. It will give us such an enormous showcase window. It will basically allow us to operate the venue in a fully-programmed way.
“We want to encourage programming across theatre, film and music. It’s a big opportunity to show what Leith Theatre can do but also to really learn from this season.
“I really hope that people come and see Leith Theatre and see why we need to part of the cultural landscape in a permanent way.”
Mr Paterson added: "The Leith Theatre Trust has done an amazing job with the building, but it's still going to be a massive journey from here.
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Hide Ad"As we’re going to do to the work of making it possible to put Restless Natives on for a few weeks we started talking about what else we could do. We had the idea of theming other theatre, music and film events that would feel true to the spirit of Restless Natives and also what they are doing in Leith Theatre.
“It's about ambition, thinking really big and a sense of everything being possible if you just go for it.
"Hopefully what we do this summer will make Leith Theatre a real destination and by the end of the summer hopefully everybody will be going: 'We want this place open full-time now.'
“There is a lot of work to do to get Leith Theatre where it can be, but the potential is just incredible."
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