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The Corinthian

Òran Mór, Glasgow

Four stars

 

As Scotland’s latest World Cup hopes come into view over the next few weeks, Joe McCann’s debut play is a timely look at one of the country’s lesser-spotted footballing greats. Back in the nineteenth century, Andrew Watson arrived in the UK from Demerara, British Guiana, the mixed race son of a wealthy sugar plantation owner father and a Guianese mother. While at university in Glasgow, Watson discovered football, and went on to become the first black player in association football at international level, who became star striker and captain of Queen’s Park. Watson also captained Scotland’s national team in three games that saw them hammer England twice, with the first game, a 6-1 victory for Watson’s team, remaining a record home defeat for England.

 

This is more than enough to get the faithful rallying behind Watson in McCann’s play, performed with heart by a solo Dayton Mungai, who begins with a question to the audience. Several others follow in a script that charts Watson’s move to Scotland, his bewilderment at arriving in a mainly white society in which he suffered racist abuse, and his success on the football field that transcended all this. The trick of throwing these lines of inquiry out there in this way puts audience members on the spot regarding what should be basic knowledge, but which has become part of a country’s hidden history.

 

Directed by Martin McCormick, McCann’s contribution to A Play, a Pie and a Pint’s ongoing season of lunchtime theatre is co-presented by Assembly Roxy in Edinburgh. This teamwork brings to light a rare talent who is applauded heartily by a fan base well versed in the direct exchanges of the football stadium. With Mungai still a student at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, his performance is a refreshing study of one man’s glory days in a play that is a celebration as much as a dramatic history lesson that scores on all counts.


The Herald, June 6th 2026

 

ends

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