FringeReview Scotland 2025
The Land That Never Was
Liam Rees
Genre: Fringe Theatre, One Person Show
Venue: Tron Theatre, Glasgow
Festival: FringeReview Scotland
Low Down
Written with the understanding of how theatre is performed in mind, this manages a twin narrative, giving us the story of Gregor McGregor as well as Liam Rees, both of whom used fiction to enhance the facts at their fingertips. Conceived, written and directed by Liam Rees, a very engaging guide who occasionally stumbles through the interactive processes he has included in the narratives. With inner thoughts and challenges from projections giving us a backdrop to the entire enterprise.
Review
Liam Rees is an engaging presence and manages to put his very much on our ease quickly in the one-man show. The use of the technology enhances the experience by telling what we might think.
The story begins with the story of Gregor McGregor in 1820 announcing that he was not only the son of a local Stirlingshire banker but also had the keys to the Principality of Poyais. Poyais never existed, but he manages to convince others of this fiction, and they invest, set off to go and find fame, fortune and land in the Americas. The story of the background of Gregor MacGregor, as well as how he managed to get people to invest in his scheme, is well imagined and told in endearing fashion. Rees, having been himself a tour guide in Edinburgh, starts to then talk through his own emergence from university to dead-end jobs that he endured to survive – one of which – telling tall tales to the tourists. Interweaving this with the story of MacGregor heightens the similarities, whilst also holding on to the differences – We don’t have to go and charge Liam Rees with any heinous crimes by the end of the performance. Though MacGregor got away with it all because nobody came back to tell the tale.
Technically, the backdrops work very well with a lot of humour with interaction through an unspoken but well-written commentary.
Rees meanders about the stage, which was endearing on the streets of Edinburgh, but not all that endearing in a theatre. There are some verbal stumbles now and again with how he delivers some of the information but doesn’t do so in a way in which he loses confidence with his audience. We are never lost – unlike MacGregor’s investors.
The audience interaction worked reasonably well although at times I felt it could fall or triumph on the strength of who he got up on stage with him. Here, it was an evening of very willing, and able, participants.
There was much else in terms of other technical support though the lighting was handled competently. By the end asking us to close our eyes whilst he eventually disappeared off stage was a nice touch and allowed the last word to be written above us – fact is that if I had the opportunity, I probably would trust Rees again to tell me more about how fiction has been created in order to entertain.
Performed upstairs in the Tron this was a Counting House production with staging appropriately in a place that allowed intimacy. It needed that cosiness as it was neither mainstream nor radical but sat somewhere between the two almost like an experimental piece of theatre that would thrive in the fringe.
This suggests that there is more to come from Rees and this outing is a relatively safe space promotes confidence that he a future Rees production should be embraced.
Asking us to contemplate what was fiction in an age of politics as we have at the moment this was distractively entertaining without being a commentary on now.
