The Hard Man

Celebrated Scots stage and screen star Alex Ferns (who chillingly portrayed one of television’s most hated villains, Trevor Morgan in Eastenders) is set to play the part of Johnnie Byrne in a major revival of Tom McGrath’s and Jimmy Boyle’s The Hard Man for the Scottish Theatres Consortium this spring. Read more …

The Hard Man is based on the early years and subsequent imprisonment of Jimmy Boyle, once reputed to be the most violent man in Scotland. In 1967 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of another gangland figure, a crime that Boyle has always denied committing. During his incarceration in the Special Unit of Barlinnie Prison, he turned to art and wrote A Sense of Freedom, his autobiography.

In 1977 he co-wrote The Hard Man with Tom McGrath and it premiered at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh to great acclaim from audiences and critics alike. It was described by The Scotsman as ‘the most stunning play seen in Scotland’ that year. Tom McGrath was a radical Scottish poet and playwright until his untimely death in 2009 known best for his plays The Hard Man, Animals and Laurel and Hardy.

The Hard Man is a fast moving story set in a variety of locations on Clydeside and in Scottish prisons. The characters are a heady mixture of accurate observation and comic strip cartoon – and the style, an unnerving blend of vaudeville and violence.

Brutal, visceral and as powerfully relevant as ever 2011’s production will be directed by Phillip Breen. He leads a creative team that includes Designer Max Jones and Sound Designer Graeme Sutherland, reuniting a creative team that last worked together on Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker at Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre.

The critical consensus

While the play is, at times, let down by a certain level of predictability, it’s made up for in Ferns’ hypnotising performance as a man constructed out of an inherently flawed social system.

(*) Andrew, TV Bomb, 03/04/2011

This is...a big strong production

Thom Dibdin, The Stage, 04/04/2011

It is a rough-edged piece of work that builds an atmosphere of naturalistic tension only to defuse it with a knowing joke or some direct audience address. It’s not for the purists, but its idiosyncrasies are what give it its special character, creating a fascinating hybrid of powerful social realism and theatrical adventurousness.

Mark Fisher, Northings, 05/04/2011

Pummelling and bleak, this testament to the spirit of survival still carries a grim force.

(*) Mark Fisher, The Guardian, 04/04/2011

Exhilarating, chilling and thought-provoking, this should not be missed.

Michael Cox, Onstage Scotland, 05/04/2011

If some of the play’s didacticism dates things, it’s more than made up for in terms of energy and bravura.

Neil Cooper, The Herald, 04/04/2011

In some ways, the worrying aspect is that after 3 decades the play remains so relevant as the mindless, brutal violence continues to blight society and like McGrath and Boyle, nobody seems to have an answer for stopping it.

(*) Keith Paterson, WhatsOnStage.com, 05/04/2011

For most of its length, though, the production is almost flawless.

(*) Joyce McMillan, 07/04/2011

Alex Ferns offers a tour de force as a criminal beginning to understand how he has been cheated and manipulated.

Gareth K Vile, The Skinny, 10/04/2011

Breen’s production of The Hard Man is a theatrical triumph that cannot be missed.

(*) Amy Taylor, The Journal, 09/05/2011