Created by NOISEMAKER’s Scott Gilmour and Claire McKenzie 

Directed by Jemima Levick

The humble cludgie.

It’s very often left out of our most important creations. This is madness because have you ever been camping? Doing your business into a hole in the ground just isn’t fun…

So, how about this: instead of being the greatest invention of all time, what if it was to help create the greatest musical of all time? Ah, now we’ve got your attention.

Bringing the legendary A Play, A Pie, and a Pint to Ghillie Dhu for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, SCOTS has been nothing short of a tremendous success for the group following its debut. Scott Gilmour and Claire McKenzie’s story, music and lyrics grasp comedy by the neck and squeeze out every last gasp of hilarity, but there’s something far more to this musical starring a toilet, backing singers, and a few historical figures. There’s something genuinely beautiful and progressive about this.

Yes, the musical with poop jokes and enough stains to perplex an armada of crime scene investigators.  

And the lucky performer who gets to play the central role? None other than Tyler Collins, whose expressive voice, expressions and limber movements give the cartoonish edge required (oddly) for the audience to take this role seriously as he emerges from the larger-than-life loo sat centre-stage. Guiding us through the U-bend of Scottish history, Collins is a superbly charismatic principal focal point whom the audience connects with easily as we meet Kings and Queens, Inventors, and the humble everyday folk of Scotland.

A cracker of an ensemble flurries around the Ghillie Dhu space, up and down the audience, as they whip back and forth between roles. Yanna Harris, Star Penders, Mackenzie Wilcox, Grant McIntyre, and Sebastian Lim-Seet make up the ensemble, though often taking central roles in some of the show’s stand-out numbers. The entire team switching from men of invention to women of innovation left out of the history books, there’s always a bouncing and jovial spirit among the team – with some stellar vocals from Harris, Penders and Lim-Seet.

Lauren Ellis-Steele turns in, frankly, stunning vocals as Mary Summerville and various ensemble roles, often leading the others in the ensemble into showcasing the team’s remarkable singing prowess and highlighting the wit of Noisemakers’ lyrics. Performances go beneath the I’m,ediate however, with the cast of SCOTS channelling the intention and gravity of the lyrics rather than just delivering tight vocals.

So far, SCOTS is rousing and entertaining, but it’s nothing that pushes beyond the jovial and foul-mouthed. But then the ‘second act’ drops, and holy shit.

There’s the subverting expectation, and then there’s this. As SCOTS lunges itself into a powerhouse of supremely tightly orchestrated vocals, with lyrics defined enough to drive the point home hard, ones which cannot dilute the emotional centre, even when delivered alongside comedy. If anything, SCOTS has the potential to stretch into a two-act production to cover the broad history of Scotland, one it belts out with a reserved pride, open to the shortcomings and mistakes, while embracing a shared future.

And though it’s always a pleasure to see Richard Conlon in any production, the small snippet in the middle of the show, following a profoundly sincere musical love-love letter to the safe space of the toilet cubicle, might be one of the performer’s most memorable moments for a whole variety of reasons. Always on top of their game, Conlon carries much of the productions’ humour and neatly ties off the more harrowing moments with the help of Lim-Seet and McIntyre.

As hard as some may try, history cannot be shoved down the lavvy. Progress has been made and there’s no intention of rolling back the clock. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun and produce some exceptionally clever and profound theatre at the same time – yes, even ones set in the bog. SCOTS, for all the foul-mouth and gutter humour, rises above it and delivers a cocktail of integrity, memorable performances, side-splitting humour and tightly arranged musical numbers: all whilst we’ve got our heads down the pan.