Reviews of Make It Happen by James Graham, starring Brian Cox & Sandy Grierson

"Brian Cox is spellbinding in James Graham’s most definitive drama yet"

"The acting titan returns to the Scottish stage for the first time in a decade, with a riveting role in Make It Happen"

"While the play is a triumph, its sobering focus – the tenure of Fred Goodwin as CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland – will offer little fillip to Edinburghian pride."

"... the play examines the recklessness and inept regulation of the New Labour era, as well as – via Smith – the legacy of the Enlightenment."

"Graham has done it again – turned complex history into theatrical gold. And this may be his most essential work yet, because it identifies the source of the political upheaval that preoccupies his work"

"... it’s the nondescript, shadowy figure of Grierson’s Goodwin who dominates the evening, empire-building in Edinburgh and determined to make corporate conquest after conquest."

"The moral of Graham’s story? Substance always trumps style, and if you’re at the apex of power, you need to do your homework. Rachel Reeves: take note."

"An overlong but ultimately spectacular Edinburgh International Festival theatre opener"

"It begins like a relentless karaoke night - and mostly without its star, Brian Cox - but the EIF’s financial crash drama finds its footing in a memorable second half"

"... in the end, James Graham’s new play Make It Happen does not disappoint; although it does take its audience on a fierce roller-coaster ride toward its powerful final scenes"

"For all its ups and downs, though, Andrew Panton’s production - co-produced by Dundee Rep, the Edinburgh International Festival and the National Theatre of Scotland - is big, spectacular and ambitious from the outset."

"The first half, though, consists largely of repetitions of Goodwin’s dumbed-down version of Smith’s philosophy"

"In the second half, though, James Graham finally gets his teeth into the real story, which concerns the appalling global financial crash of 2008, and Goodwin’s long-delayed reckoning with the more subtle aspects of Adam Smith’s thought. Sandy Grierson, as Goodwin, is both frightening and poignant"

"... Cox makes a brilliant job of capturing the many faces of Graham’s Adam Smith"

"Brian Cox haunts RBS’s Fred Goodwin in sparky financial crisis musical"

"Cox’s entertaining spectre of Adam Smith visits Royal Bank of Scotland’s fascinatingly bland tyrant CEO in James Graham’s ambitious play about his meteoric rise and remorseless fall"

"There have been some high-profile dramas about the fiscal greed and corruption that preceded or precipitated the 2008 financial crisis, from The Lehman Trilogy to Enron. James Graham’s musical, premiering at the Edinburgh international festival, is at least as epic, even if it bites off more than it can possibly chew."

"Graham works hard to make the banking part of the story snappy – and succeeds. Directed by Andrew Panton, it is pacey even if long, serious but funny"

"Grierson plays a fascinatingly bland tyrant, looking every bit the accountant he is by training."

"He is entertaining rather than fearful and seems knowingly to be Brian Cox the actor playing Smith the character."

"Its scope is so broad, its characterisation broad-brush too and there is not enough drama to Goodwin’s actual downfall."

"Yet Graham’s marshalling of material is impressive overall, and it is a miracle that the flips from comedy to Gothicism and back do not jar."

"... sparky and exuberant as Graham’s plays always are, with heaps of knowledge, humour and sharp lines. It sprawls, turns eccentric corners and defies expectations. Its ambition, and epic scope, is simultaneously a strength and weakness."

"Brian Cox has a fun supporting role in James Graham’s enjoyable but overstuffed drama about the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland"

"Now, though, it’s 17 years on: high time the tale was told properly. And what a tale Graham has cooked up: if you were worried there wouldn’t be enough material for one play, then the problem with Make It Happen is that there’s actually material for at least three."

"As with every Graham play, Make It Happen is as audacious as it is fundamentally informative: of course a two-and-a-half-hour play about Scottish banking is a tall order, and of course he carries it off. But it’s a closer thing than usual."

"The play feels overstuffed, in large part because having by far your most famous cast member turn up a handful of times as the amusingly plummy ghost of Adam Smith is a massive distraction."

"It’s a fascinating play, but not a streamlined one. Part of the problem is Graham’s over ambitious text, but Andrew Panton’s production lacks the requisite zippiness to deal with the playwright’s propensity for density."

"It’s been years since I met a James Graham play I didn’t like, but Make It Happen lacks the breathless mix of form and function that make works like This House, Quiz and Best of Enemies stone cold modern classics."

"Brian Cox perks up James Graham’s banking drama"

"The Succession actor is a splenetic Adam Smith in James Graham’s Edinburgh Festival play about the rise and fall of Fred ‘the Shred’ Goodwin and RBS"

"The drama that Graham has brought to the Edinburgh International Festival, featuring a jovial cameo by Brian Cox as the ghost of Adam Smith — yes, he of the invisible hand of the market — has some of the knockabout qualities of the dramatist’s football pageant, Dear England."

"Like England manager Gareth Southgate, Sandy Grierson’s Goodwin is a gauche figure, “a pasty wee lad”, who is propelled into the limelight. But there the similarities end."

"Try as he might, Graham can’t quite make banking as exciting as the beautiful game. Nor does this tale of folly have the poetry of The National’s financial masterpiece, The Lehman Trilogy. Still, Andrew Panton’s production gallops along"

"Cox isn’t the most natural funny man, and his shower of F-words — reminiscent of Succession’s Logan Roy at his most splenetic — begins to wear thin. Grierson himself is convincing as the shark-like Goodwin."

"RBS’s failure was on an epic scale, but this version of “Fred the Shred” isn’t the stuff of great villains."

"Full value has not been extracted"

"Exhilarating but messy drama about the rise and fall of RBS"

"Director Andrew Panton – boss of Dundee Rep – stages this growth with exhilarating power and infectious humour. A sharp-suited chorus stuffed with Scottish acting talent sings operatic versions of the Killers, Franz Ferdinand and more."

"The second half, however, is something of a mess. Graham fumbles the financial crash in a series of short scenes, failing to dramatise it with his trademark clarity."

"The play becomes overstuffed and bitty, and the social resonances and political ramifications, which Graham usually excels in distilling, are lost."

"There is a profound play to be mined from this material, but, to echo a maxim of Goodwin, its full value has not been extracted yet."