Interview: Grid Iron’s Judith Doherty and Ben Harrison Talk ‘Mayflies’ and Post-Industrial Scotland

Published in 2020, Andrew O’Hagan’s Mayflies was an immediate sensation. The book charts the story of Tully and his friends, from Ayrshire, who escape the industrial destruction of Thatcherism in the 80s via Factory Records Festival of the Tenth Summer, at Manchester’s G-Mex Centre.

The story then picks up again 30 years later in 2017. Scotland’s Grid Iron Theatre Company has adapted the novel for the stage. Renowned for their site-specific work, the team are staging Mayflies at the former maritime engineering yard, George Brown and Sons Engineering Works, which closed in 2025.

As Grid Iron celebrates 30 years in the business, we caught up with Co-Artistic Directors Ben Harrison and Judith Doherty to find out what audiences can expect from this latest production.

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First it was a novel and then a two-part TV series. How did Mayflies the theatrical production come about?

Ben: My daughter said ‘I’ve read this amazing book; it’s basically your life!’ I think she meant the music and films, Cocteau Twins, The Smiths, that world. There’s a character called Noodles who is very bookish, and I was the nerdy bookish guy. I hoped it would attract girls because I wasn’t going to attract them on the football field!

The music was inversely linked to how terribly difficult it was with communities annihilated, particularly in Scotland. I read it quickly, the last 30 pages through tear-stained eyes.

Judith: When Ben mentioned Mayflies, I went, ‘Oh God!’. The end of the book is tragic, but full of love and joy. The irony of coming across the book during a lockdown period when we were going to come out of that and do things differently, and we haven’t – there’s that resonance.

Ben: Andrew O’Hagan [the book’s author] talks about how the novel is about friendship and connection and we were craving connection so much in lockdown.

Getting permission to adapt the book and finding the right venue must have been hard.

Judith: Well, David Paul Jones [DPJ – Grid Iron’s often used composer] and Andrew went to the same school, so DPJ brokered a meeting. At the same time the perfect venue fell into our lap: The Warehouse at Browns of Leith. It’s like a hybrid of the G-Mex and The Haçienda.

Ben: Industry that had been there for 187 years had to move out because they couldn’t afford to be in that building anymore.

[In Leith] we’re surrounded by post-industrial degradation and malaise. Buildings are being repurposed, but it doesn’t always make for a happy fit. But Browns is perfect. When I walked in, it was like reading the book. We can see it out of our office window.

Walking past it, seeing sparks flying and men in boiler suits felt great, but not as great as being able to do a show.

Judith: When Custom Lane bought it and said that they were going to keep it for the community, we were in there immediately. The building is a crucible for all the different locations we need: the happy times of the 80s, their Manchester weekend, and 2017.

Ben: It’s mid-80s Ayrshire, and the old ways of production and industry have gone forever. Boys and girls are going, ‘Well, I’m not going to do what my parents did. We’ve got to go at life differently.’

So, they set off for Manchester for a weekend.

Ben: Manchester was ahead of the curve: G-Mex was the former railway station; The Haçienda was previously a yacht building. An English city gives them an idea of how to get out of Ayrshire!

Judith: Ben’s adaptation has done what the book couldn’t do, play with time – Andrew says this himself. Characters are seen at the same time as echoes or precursors of themselves. There’s real theatricality around it.

How do you make an audience feel part of the experience?

Ben: It’s important to say that the audience is seated – no mosh pit! It’s site-specific and time-specific. It’s an immersive experience, with traditions of theatre which are jumbled. The first feel is coming into The Haçienda.

Judith: Actors will be up close. When you have a younger and older version of the same character, it must feel plausible.

Ben: Tully grows into old Tully, Noodles into old Noodles. The chemistry has to work. Older characters look back to the younger [versions of themselves], and younger characters look into the future. It works. We’ve taken our time with this. I’m so pleased because the rewards in the rehearsal room are extraordinary.

I had to create a six-page glossary of terms to save the young team the homework!

Judith: DPJ is creating an incredible soundtrack with amazing video design by Lewis Den Hertog.

Will the audience leave feeling worse for the experience?

Ben: It ends on a note of hope: the incredible courage of the central character who’s facing the terminal diagnosis.

We try to find the lightness, energy, and hope at the end of our shows. We want to send our audiences out feeling good.

Mayflies is at Rear Warehouse (Tower Street Entrance) at Browns of Leith, 7th till 30th August (except 11th, 18th, 25th)

Photo credit: Mihaela Bodlovic