King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, 2 April 2011, and touring

TODAY Jimmy Boyle has a reputation as a wealthy sculptor and a connoisseur of champagne, living the good life in his Marrakesh home. At the time he co-wrote The Hard Man with the late Tom McGrath, by contrast, he was serving a life sentence in the special unit of Barlinnie prison for murder. It is hard to imagine how one man could lead such different lives, but The Hard Man gives an insight into what always set Boyle apart from the pack.

It tells the story of Johnny Byrne, a thinly fictionalised version of Boyle, on his journey from teenage shoplifter to Gorbals gangster and onwards to solitary confinement in various high-security Scottish prisons, including the “cages” in Inverness. Cool, calm and collected, actor Alex Ferns leaves us in no doubt that Byrne is a nasty piece of work; he is violent, impulsive and coldly ambitious. Being on the right side of him is hard work; being on the wrong side is unthinkable.

The Hard Man

But there is also something else, an intelligence, a life-force, an entrepreneurial zest, that means within his own community, Byrne is respected, even liked. As an audience, we find ourselves willing to back him in his fight against an equally violent state system. He’s a man who stands out from the crowd, someone who, in different circumstances, could have made something of himself ­– a wealthy sculptor and a connoisseur of champagne, for instance. It’s why they called him the “gentle terror”.

The Hard Man makes no apologies for him, but it does suggest he is a creature shaped by his environment. For a poverty-stricken underclass, his money-lending services are welcome, as is his provision of cut-price stolen goods. The bully-boy tactics are a response to the violence around him. In the terms of his own background, he is a success.

Even after 30 years, it is a fascinating, brutal story. Yes, it’s of its time, but it’s not yet irrelevant. The more Byrne is imprisoned, caged, beaten up and abused, the more we find ourselves admiring his resilience and spirit of survival.

In narrative shape, The Hard Man is a conventional bio-drama, but it is made dramatically interesting by Tom McGrath’s experimental instincts as a playwright. Much of Phillip Breen’s dark and intense production is set precisely to the rhythms of Chris Wallace’s jazz-inflected live percussion, giving the low-life exchanges a heightened, archetypal air. It is a rough-edged piece of work that builds an atmosphere of naturalistic tension only to defuse it with a knowing joke or some direct audience address. It’s not for the purists, but its idiosyncrasies are what give it its special character, creating a fascinating hybrid of powerful social realism and theatrical adventurousness.

The Hard Man can be seen at Eden Court Theatre, Inverness, 21-23 April, and His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, 26-30 April 2011.

© Mark Fisher, 2011

Links

• The Hard Man
• Mark Fisher