The Scottish stage play casting Fred Goodwin in a new light

The Herald Scotland

10 hours ago

When the rise and fall of 'Fred The Shred,' the nickname Goodwin earned for his ruthless cost-cutting, is turned into one of the biggest Scottish stage shows of the year, he is expected be cast in a whole new light.
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The actor who will play the man who would become Britain's most notorious banking boss has suggested audiences will see a different side to Goodwin – and may even feel empathy for him.
Sandy Grierson, who has spoken to a number of former RBS employees as part of his preparation for the National Theatre of Scotland play Make It Happen, said he had been keen to get past his reputation and 'find a way to like the guy.'
Former RBS chief executive Fred Goodwin will be depicted in the new stage play Make It Happen.
The show, by the leading British playwright James Graham, will see Brian Cox play the ghost of Adam Smith, the 18th century philosopher and 'father of modern economics," who returns to Edinburgh to haunt Goodwin at the height of the crisis crippling RBS.
Grierson said the show – which will launch in Cox's home city of Dundee later this month before a run at the Edinburgh International Festival – would grapple with the question of how much blame for the collapse of RBS and the global financial crisis that unfolded in 2008 should 'sit on the shoulders' of Goodwin.
Sandy Grierson will play Fred Goodwin on stage in Make It Happen. (Image: Mihaela Bodlovic)
Elements of a Greek tragedy – including a chorus, which will feature reimagined pop anthems from the 2000s – will be deployed to recall the rapid expansion of RBS during Goodwin's tenure, when it acquired a string of other banks and cut costs to generate bigger profits.
Grierson said Goodwin had been compared to Icarus, the character from Greek mythology who flew too close to the sun, during the making of the show, the first major cultural project to explore RBS's involvement in the global financial crash.
Brian Cox and Sandy Grierson will play Adam Smith and Fred Goodwin in the forthcoming stage play Make It Happen. (Image: National Theatre of Scotland/David Vintiner)
The actor said: 'He did get the closest to the sun. He got RBS to being the biggest bank in the world. I'm fairly confident that at that time it seemed like the best thing to do.
'Fred Goodwin didn't just do it in isolation. It was a time when everyone around the world was trying to get their bank bigger and bigger so they did not get bought over. You were either a big fish that did the eating or a wee fish that got eaten.
Brian Cox and Sandy Grierson will appear in Make It Happen at Dundee Rep and the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh. (Image: David Vintiner)
'I think the banks had got themselves into some sort of alchemy. They were in a constant circle of growth.
'The play has a momentum right from the beginning that doesn't stop until all the wheels come off.'
The rise and fall of the Royal Bank of Scotland under Fred Goodwin will be explored in the stage play Make It Happen.
Graham, whose previous work has brought Margaret Thatcher, Dominic Cummings and Rupert Murdoch to the stage and screen, has suggested that Make It Happen would trace the links between the 2008 financial crisis and the modern-day economic landscape in Britain, as well as explore the working-class roots of Paisley-born Goodwin, the first member of his family to go to university.
Key players in the handling of the 2008 financial crisis, including the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his Chancellor, Alistair Darling, will be portrayed in Make It Happen, along with a mix of real-life and fictionalised RBS figures.
Director Andrew Panton and actor Brian Cox during rehearsals for new National Theatre of Scotland play Make It Happen. (Image: Alastair More)
As well as speaking to former RBS employees, Grierson has studied video footage of Goodwin and even walked around the grounds of the bank's vast headquarters complex at Gogarburn, which was built during his tenure.
He told The Herald: 'Edinburgh is a small place. I have met people who were involved with RBS and have stories to tell.
'There were lots of stories about 'Fred the Shred' and all of that, but I've been quite keen to get under the surface of that.
'Regardless of the point of view of the audience, I felt I needed to find a way to like the guy. There are people out there who got on with him. He has got friends that still stand by him.
'I think you've got to absolutely take your hat off to his ability. He seems to have been so calm under pressure. It is remarkable.
"There is a lot of things you can say about Fred Goodwin, but I think he was victimised to an extent. He put himself in the firing line.
'It seems really weird that he took his eye off the ball so badly. I have still not quite got my head around it.
'I don't think that it's a show that asks you to entirely sympathise with Fred Goodwin. That's not what we are doing.
"There is a sort of Greek tragedy vein that runs through it. When you watch a Greek tragedy, you can sort of have empathy with a character without necessarily being on their side.
'Hopefully people will understand what we imagine was fuelling and firing Fred Goodwin.'
Make It Happen was developed following discussions about separate ideas for new plays from Graham, Cox and Andrew Panton, the artistic director of Dundee Rep, where the show will launch on July 18.
When Make It Happen was announced in January, Cox suggested that Adam Smith had been "constantly misquoted" and had had his writing "hijacked" by politicians like Margaret Thatcher.
Grierson said: 'When I first read the play, I loved the idea of the haunting of Fred Goodwin the notion of re-examining Adam Smith, prising him away from the clutches of Margaret Thatcher and investigating him in a more intelligent context than he is often seen and how we imply that Fred Goodwin probably saw him.
"Coming into this, I got quite fixated on the bits of footage of Fred Goodwin that do exist.
"But I'm aware that I have to perform the play that James has written and the Fred Goodwin that he has written.
'We are dealing with someone who is very tight-lipped and contained emotionally. That is allowed to escape in a pressure cooker kind of way.
"When Fred meets Adam, there is certainly scope for your own imagination to let loose a bit more.
'The scenes that James has written between Adam and Fred are great. Fred needs Adam. He can't let him go - he desperately tries to cling onto him.'
Make It Happen is at Dundee Rep from July 18-26 and at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh from July 30-August 9