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Black Diamonds and the Blue Brazil

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

Five stars

 

For those on side, Cowdenbeath Football Club may never have been premiere league material, but they have always occupied a field of dreams. This is made clear in Gary McNair’s wonderful new stage adaptation of Ron Ferguson’s 1993 book, ostensibly a love letter to the club that becomes a funny and profound meditation on the collective power of football fandom as a form of everyday devotion.

 

So it goes with McNair’s version, which sees Cowdenbeath native Sally make a reluctant prodigal’s return to the Fife mining town following the death of her football daft dad. The deal is that Sally is to scatter her old man’s ashes onto the pitch at CFC’s home ground of Central Park, but only after they win a game. As historical statistics show, alas, the 1991/92 season when Sally made her promise wasn’t exactly a walk in the park in terms of getting a resuls, which is why she finds herself spending more weekends than she bargained for on the terraces.

 

Told primarily by Dawn Steele as Sally in James Brining’s Royal Lyceum production, this makes for a moving and oddly heart-warming creation, which sees a veritable conversion for Sally as her world changes. With Barrie Hunter stepping in and out of Jessica Worrall’s old school social club set as Dad, the play’s emotional drive is pulsed by a series of new songs by Ricky Ross, who performs his mini epics of hope and heartbreak on an upright piano, part one man chorus, part club turn.

 

First presented by McNair as a podcast during the pandemic induced lockdown, McNair's play taps into a beautifully unreconstructed world that exists beyond multi million pound transfer fees and six figure sponsorship deals. Through Sally, he explores what a football team means to the local community it is part of as a truly local endeavour. Underlying this is a wit that matches Ferguson’s own in a great display of teamwork throughout a play about faith, loss and the love that comes from both.


The Herald, May 15th 2026

 

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