Grid Iron Stages Mayflies in Edinburgh Warehouse — SkimNews
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- Grid Iron stages Andrew O'Hagan's semi-autobiographical novel Mayflies at Rear Warehouse, Brown's of Leith, Edinburgh, running until 30 August.
- Ben Harrison adapts and directs, homing in on the novel's 1986 Manchester trip — G-Mex's Festival of the Tenth Summer and the Haçienda — rather than the narrative's later Dignitas journey, using a Leith warehouse to evoke the Thatcher-era shift from heavy industry to leisure economy.
- Lewis den Hertog projects non-stop images of Morrissey, Marr, and Factory Records' Peter Saville colours at either end of the space, while David Paul Jones's soundtrack weaves in Joy Division, the Smiths, and the Fall.
- Graham Mackay-Bruce plays the adult Tully, clinging to his maverick spirit after a terminal cancer diagnosis, alongside Matthew Pidgeon as Jimmy, Carmen Pieraccini as Iona, and Lucianne McEvoy as Anna.
- The reviewer finds fidelity to the novel both the production's strength and its weakness, noting the book's narrative energy is concentrated in the first third's Manchester trip while the rest is adult reflection; echoey acoustics in the four-sided warehouse seating are a noted trade-off.
Why it matters: The adaptation's central gamble — anchoring the staging to the 1986 Manchester weekend rather than the novel's terminal-illness arc — is flagged as both the production's strength and structural weakness, since O'Hagan's narrative energy sits in the first third. The four-sided warehouse seating delivers immersion but at the cost of echoey acoustics through 30 August.
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