The 'hard man' is a Scottish archetype, and there is none harder than Johnny Byrne. Though controversial because of the violence, nudity and its connection with the then-notorious Jimmy Boyle, this play was absorbing and intense theatre. The stylish Traverse production toured the UK and enjoyed a successful London run.
Traverse Theatre Club, 19 May 1977. Directed by Peter Lichtenfels.
Slugger / Renfrew – Martin Black
Deadeye / Archie / Kelley / Policeman / Clerk of Court / Mochan – Mike Carter
Big Danny Policeman / Lewis the Lawyer / Commando / Paisley – Ian Ireland
Byrne – Peter Kelly
Lizzie / Carol / Woman’s voice – Ann Scott-Jones
Maggie / Maw / Woman with Archie / Barwoman / Didi – Frances Low
Bandit / Johnstone – Benny Young
Percussionist – Ronnie Goodman
The Scottish Theatres Consortium's production of 'The hard Man' toured Scotland from 31 March to 7 May 2011. Starring Alex Ferns and Iain Robertson, it was the first major revival of the play in over 30 years.
'Ma roads mapped oot fur me. Ah keep a chib over the door an a blade in ma bedroom.'
'Ah promise yae ah'll make it as unpleasant as possible. If yir gonnae break me, yir gonnae break yersels tae.'
Based on the life of Jimmy Boyle, who was credited as co-writer of the play and – at the time of its production – was still a prisoner in Barlinnie Special Unit.
The first act charts Johnny Byrne's Glasgow life from a boyhood of petty crime to brutality, murder, and 'hard man' status in adulthood.
The second act sees Byrne imprisoned and here the brutality is meted out by sadistic prison officers. Some saw the end of the play, where Byrne smears his naked body with his own excrement, as hopeless, where others saw in it the triumph of humanity.
Bringing Boyle's violent life to the stage made him the hero of the piece to some extent. The villain was the State and prison system.
The stylised gangland violence of the first act, and the more realistic prison brutality and excrement-smeared nudity of the second, shocked some play-goers.
Tom McGrath was a hugely influential figure in various fields of creativity in Scotland, and beyond. Many contemporary playwrights acknowledge a debt to him, not just for the quality – and variety – of work he produced, but for very direct and practical support.
'The hardman in this stunning new play, imported from the Edinburgh Traverse, is John Byrne, a graduate of the Glasgow mean streets for whom violence is an art form practised for itself. Or at least that is how Byrne in his flightier moments sees his activity of slashing faces as if let loose in a nightmarish, Celtic re-run of "Guys and Dolls".
... Any bald summary of the play’s contents is liable to either sensationalise them or render a reviewer’s recommendation unpalatable. I can only report that I have experienced the most moving play of the year and that the entire production sets standards in this sort of social, realistic drama that I cannot imagine being matched in a long time.’
– Michael Coveney, 'Financial Times', 1 December 1977.
'Since that first night last May the production has been greatly and effectively tightened up; the teamwork and conviction of the playing by Peter Kelly, Ian Ireland and company are no less extraordinary. As before it is always entertaining, often moving, and occasionally stunning (all adjectives used again and again in reviews).
But my original reservations still nag away behind my admiration. The play is good, but it could be far better. For all its brilliant theatricality – the blending of harsh reality with the punch of a cartoon strip; the marvellous use of percussion (Benny Goodman) to add 'colour' – it leaves me dissatisfied by its superficial treatment of Byrne / Boyle’s personality.
And it worries me that their Act 1 where we see Byrne flexing his muscles, so to say, as a potential king pin in crime and violence ... contains all the burlesque treatment and laughter; while Act II with Byrne caught and gaoled, humiliated and beaten up again and again by sadistic screws, and finally undergoing the hideous Chinese torture of the cage at Inverness, is played for real, with Byrne as humanity triumphant over evil, a hero in every sense. This is sentimental stuff, no matter how blood spattered and smeared.’
– Cordelia Oliver, 'The Guardian', 5 January 1978.
© National Library of Scotland 2010