The PBH Free Fringe stages hidden nuggets of gold and a small number of curious audience members have gathered at BrewDog, which is slightly off the beaten track on Lothian Road, for Mark Meiklejohn’s historical offering about Scotland, hoping to find one of those precious shows.

Meiklejohn has previous experience in this sort of fare (Burns for Beginners and Dark Fare) so is something of a PBH veteran.

He takes to the stage dressed all in gray to present 55 minutes of historical badinage and some genuinely eye-opening and even jaw-dropping observations. It would be couthie to reveal what the bad ideas actually are, you’ll need to attend for yourself to find that out, but it’s true to say that there’s considerable overlap between them as they span four centuries of Scottish history, with a nod to ancient Wales as the genesis of them all, back in the 8th century.

Meiklejohn has a keen eye for detail and each of these ideas are thoroughly researched, they all play into Scotland’s proud cultural heritage and the country’s particular attitudes, especially towards its closest neighbour who doesn’t emerge from this story covered in glory.

Meiklejohn is clearly a nationalist at heart, not rabidly so mind you, and uses these bad ideas to illustrate that although we are a fiercely proud nation we do have a right good track record of botching things up.

Although this a story of political twists and turns over the centuries, it’s by no means dry. Good use of props delivered wittingly, engagingly and lightheartedly, with a spot of audience participation, make the 55 minutes he’s on stage gallop by and before we know it we’re back in present day Scotland, glass in hand with a small nugget of gold to exchange at ye olde bar.

‘A History of Scotland in 6 Bad Ideas‘ is at PBH Free Fringe @ BrewDog Lothian Road until Sun 24 Aug 2025 at 13:25