The Scotsman Festival Sessions: Lucianne McEvoy and Kieran Devine in Mayflies
Welcome to the Scotsman Sessions, a series of short video performances from artists all around the country introduced by our critics. Here, Lucianne McEvoy & Kieran Devine perform a scene from Grid Iron’s award-winning stage adaptation of Andrew O’Hagan’s novel Mayflies
When Andrew O’Hagan’s novel Mayflies first appeared in 2020 - and was later transformed into a two-part television drama starring Martin Compston and Tory Curran - it was acclaimed for its kindly and compassionate portrayal of male fragility and friendship, in an age when traditional masculinity is often viewed as “toxic”.
Set in a working-class Ayrshire community, O’Hagan’s story looks back at a moment in 1986 when a group of six young friends from the town spent a formative few days at a legendary music festival in Manchester, revelling in the music of the great Manchester bands of the period, and laughing and arguing their way through the weekend of their 18-year-old lives; but then revisits the characters 30 years on, in their late 40s, when the harsh realities of life are biting hard, and their banter-based relationships face the toughest of tests.
The gang is led by the brilliant Tully, the brightest, funniest and coolest of them all; and his quietly observant sidekick Jimmy, known as Noodles, who later becomes a successful writer, and the book’s narrator. And now, the story of their friendship is being retold on stage by the award-winning Edinburgh theatre company Grid Iron, which specialises in site-specific work, set in venues that thrillingly reflect the themes of their shows.
For Mayflies, they have chosen the Rear Warehouse at Brown’s of Leith on The Shore, a rangy ex-industrial space very similar to the iconic Manchester music venues of the 1980s; and in this early scene from director Ben Harrison’s stage version of the story, we see the young Noodles, played by Kieran Devine, in a brief encounter with a teacher, Mrs O’Connor, who sees more in him at that moment than he dares to see in himself.
“I think we all have that teacher in our past, who catches us at a time when it really matters,” says award-winning Scottish-based actress Lucianne McEvoy, who plays both Mrs O’Connor and Tully’s lifelong partner Anna in the show. “I certainly had one, growing up in Dublin. I was a member of a youth theatre group, and I loved it; but it never occurred to me that I could study theatre as a profession until a teacher told me about a new acting course that was starting up Trinity College, and said I should apply.”
And Devine has similar memories, not least of Glasgow Acting Academy - where he fell in love with theatre in his early teens - and of Mr Kelly, his Clydebank Academy music teacher, who encouraged him and his friends to think about what really inspired them - in life, in music, in culture - and then follow that path.
“And for Noodles in the play,” says Devine, “that encouragement to see that you can actually change your path, and not just accept the life that’s expected of you, is vital. Given all that’s happened to him, he’s really happy to get a job in the local job centre, pinning up information about vacancies and making the tea, even though it’s really boring, and he knows he really likes writing. What he needs is confidence, and Mrs O’Connor is trying to give him that confidence, in this scene.”
“He’s at an age,” adds McEvoy, “where you tend to be looking for your tribe, and trying to fit in, whether through music or anything else - and the music in this show is truly wonderful, rebellious stuff, still a vital part of our culture 40 years on. So it’s an age when it really takes a lot of courage to value your own difference, and to choose a different path.
“And that’s what’s beautiful about this story - how it looks back from an older perspective with such empathy, and shows you how the intensity and energy of those youthful years should be treasured. But of course, you don’t know that until you’re older, do you? All you can do is hold the memories together; and then sometimes it’s suddenly too late, even for that.”
Mayflies is at Brown’s of Leith, Edinburgh, until 30 August as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
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