The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil

Has there ever been a play so celebrated in contemporary Scottish theatre as John McGrath’s The Cheviot, The Stag and the Black, Black Oil? The play, and 7:84, the company that staged it, are often credited with changing Scottish theatre from 1973 onwards, so much so that it became something of a legend, performed rarely, but thought of often.

And every legend has a beginning. This play begins and ends with true stories. Such as the story of the displacement of the people through the Highland Clearances, the hunting of the stag by rich aristocrats, and finally, the oil boom of the 20^th century. This is a tale of the privileged and the opportunistic leaving a country forever changed, and not for the better.  

Revived to great acclaim by the Dundee Rep last year by its Artistic Director, Joe Douglas, The Cheviot has found a new audience, and with it, perhaps, an even greater relevance than it had before. It is a modern theatrical rallying cry, a call to arms from a distant era for the audience to stand up and take notice of what is going on in the country, and the world today.  

Using song, (the incredible cast of ten performers play a multitude of instruments) the play is a riotous clash of sound, fury, but also, hope.  While the second act feels like it loses its footing a little in comparison to the first, and with obvious and jarring references to Donald Trump and maps showing the changing nautical border between Scotland and England, it is a play with so much more life inside it. Bold, brash, funny, but never far from tragedy, The Cheviot aims to question where we’ve been before, and with a recent history such as ours, it leaves us wondering, just where the hell we are going now? [Amy Taylor]