At its heart this is a very simple story. A few anecdotes about growing-up, finding your passion, hero-worship, not fitting in, and working outside of the creative industries. But it’s delivered with such passion, humour and energy by David Colvin that it feels like a romantic epic sweeping through the history of music; charting one man’s musical genius, held back by the reactionary forces around him, but so undeniable that it inspires the young people around him and will be celebrated long after those who heard him in real life have gone.

Because this is the story of a bagpipe player, there’s a strong atmosphere of folk tale. Before the lights go up you can already imagine the ghostly lone pipers who have played at funerals, or who march through battlefields when the moon is full or an anniversary is reached. And because this is the tragicomic tale of a Pitlochry bin man who went to Glasgow to cock a snook at the officials of the National Piping Centre, there’s also an echo of all the fiddle players who ever outwitted the Devil or any number of rogues and outlaws who tricked and charmed their way through their short lives.

This is also a true story, and Colvin takes us from his childhood in Fife, to his teenage years playing in competitions with his school pipe band. It was during these competitions that he came across Gordon Duncan, the greatest bagpiper, who broke the rules, fused his tradition with other genres, and died young, an alcoholic outcast, who earned a living throwing rubbish into the back of a lorry.

There’s something heroic about artists who die in poverty and obscurity only to gain the recognition and respect they deserve when it’s too late for them to benefit from it. It appeals to our notions of artistic integrity, they had no opportunity to sell out, and they followed their own muse. It also appeals to our feeling that death can’t be the end. That something of our lives, our spirit or our memory, should linger on in some fashion.

Music, with its power to change our moods, to make us euphoric or sad, excited or riotous, is the most appropriate vehicle for transcending the limitations of the material world, but as often as Colvin looks to the heavens to convey that power, he also has enough sarcastic banter to remind us we were put on this earth.

Thunderstruck is at Netherbow Theatre at Scottish Storytelling Centre until Tue 18 Aug 2026