Two contrasting productions in Scotland use music and storytelling to examine loss and the courage needed to face it
Scottish theatre this season returns repeatedly to the subject of loss, particularly the decline of long-standing industries and the communities shaped by them. In two recent offerings, the theme is handled in strikingly different tones: one with warmth, songs and small‑town loyalty, the other with a lean, dramatic focus on obsession and denial.
Published 15th May 2026, this piece looks at Black Diamonds and the Blue Brazil at the Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh and Sunset Boulevard – The Backstage Cut at Perth Theatre, considering how each production asks audiences to reckon with defeat while holding on to hope.
Black Diamonds and the Blue Brazil arrives on stage as an affectionate adaptation of Ron Ferguson’s book, shaped for theatre by Gary McNair and directed by James Brining. The adaptation frames the action largely through Sally’s voice, and the structure leans on memory and flashback: her relationship with her father anchors the narrative.
Music composed and performed by Ricky Ross of Deacon Blue provides a continuous musical layer that supports the storytelling rather than interrupting it. The piece treats fandom as a civic language and a means of belonging, turning the rituals of local football into portals for family history and community identity.
Theatre of the terraces: story, song and sentiment
The production is notable for how it stages the ordinary textures of working‑class life. A simple clubroom and terrace become a setting for recollection and gentle comedy, and the recurring motif of returning to matches — sometimes clutching a small urn — transforms a routine into a quest. That quest is powered by an intent as human as it is specific: the dying wish to scatter ashes at Central Park after a winning match. The narrative insists on the value of small rituals and the dignity of routine, inviting us to see a season of losses not merely as failure but as a complex form of attachment. The show asks, in effect, what it means to keep faith when the scoreboard never favours you.
Performance, design and musical thread
On stage, the chemistry between Dawn Steele and Barrie Hunter gives the piece its heart. Steele carries the storytelling with a blend of world‑weary clarity and affection, while Hunter’s portrayal of the father figure supplies warmth, comic intelligence and a reservoir of local wisdom. Visually, Jessica Worrall’s set is economical and evocative, becoming a clubhouse, a council flat, and a terrace through small shifts. At an upright piano, Ricky Ross functions like a modern Greek chorus, his songs stitched into the action to accentuate mood and theme. The music acts as continuo, a constant emotional undercurrent that deepens scenes without overwhelming them.
Sunset Boulevard reimagined: brevity and brittle glamour
Sunset Boulevard – The Backstage Cut, adapted by Morag Fullarton, takes a very different approach to loss. This condensed version concentrates the fatal glamour and delusion of Billy Wilder’s original tale into a compact, 75‑minute theatrical experience. Juliet Cadzow’s performance as Norma Desmond is a study in faded grandeur and inability to accept time’s passage, while John Kielty as Joe Gillis charts the cost of succumbing to wealth and manipulation. The staging emphasizes psychological pressure and theatrical artifice; it silences communal consolation and instead exposes the corrosive effects of clinging to a vanished past.
Why the two productions matter together
Seen side by side, the plays offer a useful contrast: one explores how communities absorb loss and find solidarity, the other shows how personal denial can wreck lives. Both dramas insist that surviving loss requires facing it, though they demonstrate different paths — collective ritual, humour and song on one hand, bitter self‑deception and tragedy on the other. For theatre‑goers wanting to experience these perspectives in person, Black Diamonds and the Blue Brazil is at the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, until 23 May, and Sunset Boulevard – The Backstage Cut is at Perth Theatre until 16 May. Each offers a distinct lesson in what it takes to move on without losing the ties that keep us human.
