Adam McNamara really enjoyed watching TV cop shows when he was growing up in Dundee. When he signed up to become one of the boys in blue, however, any resemblance to much of the on-screen action was incidental. A decade since he left the force to train as an actor, and with stints onstage in Black Watch and more recently on the West End in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child under his belt, McNamara has attempted to set the record straight. This comes in the form of Stand By, an intense and claustrophobic new work, which attempts to show the tedium and frustration of a thin blue line on the verge of action, but forced to hang fire until the moment is right. Rather than give vent to the on-stage equivalent of car chases and gun-toting stand-offs, McNamara's play aims to get behind the police's public image. “It's not a cop drama,” he says on a break from the first read-through of the play earlier this week. “It's about the humans behind the uniform. Having been a co
An archive of arts writing by Neil Cooper. Effete No Obstacle.