Andrew O’Hagan‘s book is adapted and directed by Ben Harrison for Scottish theatre royalty, Grid Iron, as part of the Made in Scotland showcase of shows. In bringing this to the stage the site specific specialists have unearthed another little nugget of gold in George Brown’s former metalworking factory in the heart of Leith.

It’s rugged, as you might expect, and as the audience enters, the space echoes of Manchester’s Hacienda Club reveal themselves in the use of yellow and black tape, the same for the seating, and a massive industrial crane, itself a faded bright yellow.

The two key characters Tully Dawson and Jimmy Collins (Noodles) are sat aperch a yellow scaffolding rig, watching over the audience like birds of prey, with images of a lake flickering behind them.

Chairs are reserved by placing albums covers of the key records of the time (early 1980s): Dare, The Specials, High Land Hard Rain, Substance.  The detailing is good for those of us that populated that music scene in our formative years which, looking around, was a demographic well-represented in the audience.

It’s all fantastically evocative and with the PA pounding out Souxsie and The Cocteau Twins in the pre-show warm up the scene is well and truly set for what follows – a lifetime platonic love affair between two guys from Ayrshire that transcends their relationships with any others, including (and excluding) their wives.

O’Hagan’s story is a familiar one as it has successfully made it to our TV screens, and the piece is essentially untampered with. But the intermeshing use of the younger and older leads is a clever dramatic device that means both pairs of men are in action throughout.

The older Noodles (played by Matthew Pidgeon) narrates throughout, which means that the older Tully (Graham Mackay-Bruce) has a lower profile until the second half – the reconciliation – when the big C comes home to roost in Tully’s still young body. For the first half of the show it’s the eighteen year old Noodles (Kieran Devine) and Tully (a larger than life Jude Bain) that take centre stage alongside a cleverly worked chorus of Paul McCole, John McGeachie (who gets some right grumpy old bastard roles), and Carmen Pieraccini.

A first half of gay abandon transmogrifies into a second of preparation for death in Switzerland’s Dignitas hospital.  This is where Tully’s lifelong adoration of the much more succesful Collins starts to create real tension. His wife, Anna, the ever dependable Lucianne McEvoy, becomes the third cog in the relationship and it’s not an easy one for Tully to manage. He can’t share his feelings with his long term partner and this breaks her heart.

There are no surprises in the adaptation, but the key question is whether the site-specific nature of Grid Iron’s production helps or hinders. Site-specific theatre creates vagaries that proscenium arch theatre dooes not have to deal with and in this case, stunning as the location might be, it hampers the sound with too much reverb that means it’s a long time before the acoustics settle. The stage is also so vast that some of the action becomes disjointed and a wee bit shouty.

The emotional heft of the second part is diluted by the surroundings and as a result the production suffers from a lack of hugability. It’s just all a bit too performance and not enough intimacy.  Which is a shame because there is much to love about every other aspect of the show.

Mayflies is at Rear Warehouse (Tower Street Entrance) at Brown’s of Leith until Sun 30 Aug 2026