Sandy Grierson reveals what it’s like playing the ex-RBS chief blamed for the 2008 financial crisis in the big hit of this year’s Edinburgh Festival
Sandy Grierson wonders whether Fred Goodwin might consider dropping in to see the play that charts his rise and fall. Make It Happen, the big hit of the Edinburgh Festival, explores the disastrous leadership of the man who headed the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), and his role in collapsing what was then the world’s largest bank.
Grierson plays the part of Goodwin, with the Succession star Brian Cox as the 18th-century economist Adam Smith, pondering the arrogance that pitched a capitalist enterprise into financial meltdown.
As he takes the stage each night, Grierson cannot help speculating what Goodwin himself, who still lives in Edinburgh, would make of the play….
For Grierson, as he immersed himself in the part, the dilemma was whether to play Goodwin as a straightforward villain or, by exploring his background, growing up in a bungalow in Ferguslie Park, controlled by an overbearing father, to make him more of a human being.
“Someone asked me how I was going to play a man who seemed to completely lack charm and charisma, and yet to keep an audience engaged for a couple hours,” he said. “I didn’t want to lose the accountant element of Goodwin, because I think that is a key to his persona and his character….
