A NOVEL about Scotland’s post-war era and the hardships facing working-class communities by an award-winning journalist has made it to the stage for the first time at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Former Herald and Scotsman journalist Kenneth Roy's The Invisible Spirit is often described as a searing yet witty dramatisation of Scotland’s people, places and politics in the wake of the Second World War.
Spanning from 1945 to 1975, The Invisible Spirit captures the complexities of a nation struggling to grasp a sense of its own identity while highlighting the social and economic desperation Scotland faced through the failings of its ruling class.
Stories of poverty, diseases, scandals and serial killers are told through the eyes of three actors in the backdrop of shipyards and tenement slums as The Invisible Spirit makes its first-ever appearance on stage.
Starring Chris Alexander, Fergus John McCann and Elaine Stirrat, and directed by Katie Jackson, Roy’s beloved biography of Scotland will come to life for festival audiences at theSpace throughout August.
It’s a story of desperation, as Elieen Reid, daughter of the Scottish trade unionist Jimmy Reid, said, left her with tears in her eyes, but also one of community and hope. Roy's “mischievous” storytelling managed to conjure laugh-out-loud moments throughout from the veteran actor Bill Paterson through his unsparing critique of the political and judicial class.
The long-time friend of Roy’s, Alan McIntyre, made his producing debut with The Invisible Spirit, as he said he believed it had been a real shame the author never got the play produced despite writing an adaptation for the theater before his death in 2018.
“It's been a great sort of experience watching it come to fruition,” McIntyre said.
He added that “it was just great to see something that had only ever lived on a piece of paper coming to life with great actors and great staging.
“It just feels as if we have done him justice by putting it on.”
McIntyre, who is the international board chair of the Royal Conservatoire in Glasgow, said one of the biggest challenges with the play was cutting the script by around 30 minutes so that it would fit the Fringe’s time constraint of one-hour shows.
“I had this experience of trying to edit it down and feeling as if Kenneth was standing behind me saying, ‘Don't touch that. That's really important. You can get rid of that’,” McIntyre joked.
He explained that he tried to edit the story so that it maintained the core themes of Roy’s story.
One of the main themes of The Invisible Spirit is the idea that Scotland thinks of itself as a socially democratic country, but the reality is that the establishment protects itself and that working-class people are “screwed over” on a regular basis by the establishment, which tries to protect itself.
The story is told through three narrators: The Daily Record, The Bulletin, and The Scotswoman, not a newspaper, but representing women's voices, as they walk the viewer from VE Day in George Square to the 1970s oil boom, weaving through the Gorbals, the Clydeside yards, and down the pits.
One of the most potent scenes is Jimmy Reid’s legendary rectorial address, Alienation, best known as the rat race speech, which he delivered at Glasgow University in October 1971, during his attempt to save jobs at the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders.
His daughter, who attended one of the opening nights, said the play is a “tour de force” as it seamlessly depicted numerous historical moments during the 30-year period - including her father's speech.
“The way they highlighted dad's Alienation address was very powerful,” Elieen said.
“The speech transcended politics, especially party politics, and people, young people going to the play and learning something of their own history here in Scotland, is really important.”
Elieen added: “Kenneth was a brilliant chronicler with his dry wit and sort of melancholic humanity that pervaded his work.
“Looking back on the Alienation speech, it injected a kind of pathos for me. I was a bit weepy at the end.”
Elieen praised the play's ability to embody Roy’s writing as she said it paid homage to his lament of Scotland’s lost industry incredibly well.
Best known for his wide range of roles, including House of the Dragon and Fleabag, Paterson got to know Roy and said the words “just came running off the page” when he first saw the book's adaptation.
Paterson said Roy’s witty, wise, and mischievous charm oozes through his writing and that despite the bleak backdrop, the story of The Invisible Spirit still manages to draw laughter through his piercing observations.
“You giggle at it, you laugh out loud,” he said.
The veteran actor said that despite Roy’s story being set decades ago, it highlights to audiences that today’s politics have moved on much since the Second World War.
Tickets can be found here, and The Invisible Spirit runs from August 11, 13-16/ 18-23.
