---

---

Billed as a “biting satire” about the Royal Bank of Scotland, Make It Happen reads more as a half-baked Hamilton that faceplants before you can even begin to ponder the irony of its title.

---

In a post-pandemic era when theatre is still struggling to sell itself, it is no longer surprising that big names and faces are used to market the newest shows on the block. However, there is a point at which this brand of marketing can take it too far. I might very well be the only one who made this mistake, but it never occurred to me to draw a line between a story, helmed by Brian Cox, about the rise and fall of the Royal Bank of Scotland…and a jukebox musical.

Make It Happen is James Graham’s latest stab at revitalizing the oft-forgotten zeitgeists that deeply underpin our present sociopolitical moment. And, while it is important in its subject matter, ambitious in its scope, and bold in its choice to lean more on satire than drama, it does not feel like a finished piece. Choices – both textually and technically – muddy what otherwise might have been a powerful dramatization of a key chapter in Edinburgh’s history and a relevant comment on the Edinburgh International Festival’s theme this year, The Truth We Seek. Instead of kindling its audience with a healthy, democratic “thirst for awareness” that only art can nurture in an age of (mis)information overload – something Graham mentions in the website’s audio introduction of the performance – it leaves a dull reminder that theatre (and the marketing used to sell it) can be just as misleading.

There is a world in which the slow poisoning and catastrophic decay of the RBS by greed and corruption is told effectively onstage through flashy ensemble arrangements of Adele’s “Chasing Pavements” and Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out.” There is a world in which, even after a lovely rendition of Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know” (which still powerfully conjures memories of watching Glee in my teenage years), the dark and twisting epic of the RBS is told ingeniously, like a musical version of The Lehman Trilogy we never knew we needed. But this is not that world. And Make It Happen sadly never does live up to its title.

There were also equally confusing technical choices that plagued the story with distractions. It was difficult to believe we were in the CEO’s office of the most successful bank in the world. At one point, it was clear that actors were holding plastic champagne flutes instead of glass ones, especially when they awkwardly avoided clinking glasses for fear of revealing their props’ true, cheap material. Even more perplexing was the choice of Fred Godwin’s desk. At one point, he asks his secretary to secure a first edition of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, instructing him to “keep the price between us.” It is difficult to square comments like that when he then sits down to operate his global business from a skinny four-legged tramp of a desk from the likes of IKEA. 

For a story so central to the identity of Edinburgh, it is disappointing that its execution falls so short, especially with such a talented cast and within the context of the Edinburgh International and Fringe Festivals. Even with the promising concept behind Make It Happen, perhaps it’s best to let Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand drive this one back to the drawing board before it remounts anywhere else.