Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
Five stars
Matthew Zajac’s now almost twenty-year-old solo play has had a journey almost as remarkable as its subject matter. Opening for previews in Glasgow’s now long lost Arches venue back in 2008 prior to a successful Edinburgh Festival Fringe run, Zajac’s autobiographical tale of his father’s flight from his homeland in the then Polish area of Galicia and everything that followed has travelled the world several times over.
This latest tour of Scotland is the biggest for some time, and chimes with the publication of a new edition of Zajac’s play that also charts his own quest to find his roots. The result in this revival of Ben Harrison’s production for the Highland based Dogstar Theatre Company is a show that retains its original intimacy as it explores Zajac’s deeply personal story about fathers and sons. Through this backdrop it becomes a far bigger universal tale that lays bare the unintended consequences of war in terms of migration, exile, reinvention and survival as a secret history is unearthed.
This is brilliantly and poignantly portrayed by Zajac, who flits between an avuncular portrayal of his father and some in depth detective work as he follows his flight from Poland to Russia, Manchester and Glasgow before finally setting up shop in Inverness. This is played out against the maps and projections of Ali Maclaurin’s set design to make up a living tapestry of hand me down experience that crosses generations and nations as old borders are constantly redrawn.
This is given depth and texture by the live violin music of Gavin Marwick and Jonny Hardie, with Kai Fischer’s sepia tinged lighting heightening the feel of a living scrapbook. By the end, as Zajac prepares to come face to face with his father’s legacy that exists among the epic sweep of history, it looks like he has finally come home in a beautifully realised portrait of the human costs of conflict down the ages.
The Herald, September 9, 2026
Ends
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