The Land That Never Was – The Studio, Edinburgh

Starting life as an idea broached on a Scratch night for budding theatre makers a year ago, Liam Rees brings a fascinating true story of financial fraud to fruition to a packed house tonight.

Imagine a country so bountiful in flora and fauna, set in the warm rejuvenating waters of Central America, a tropical paradise, where you would be lord of all you surveyed. This is the dream that Stirling man (Sir) Gregor McGregor sold to over 300 Scots in 1820. The country was Poyais, it had its own currency, parliament, honours system and coat of arms, all described in loving detail in an illustrated 350-page guidebook. But the book, like the story was fake, as was the currency which padded the wallets of the hopeful on their long and perilous journey. The actual destination for the unfortunate Scots was the notorious Mosquito Coast of Honduras, abandoned as uninhabitable by the Spanish and Portuguese.

More than half the Scots perished and those that survived sailed home to confront Sir Gregor only to find that he was long gone, living out the remainder of his life on a comfortable military pension in Venezuela.

The youthful Rees uses a mixture of devices including video projection stand-up comedy and audience participation to attempt to bring the story to life. This peripatetic approach makes for a patchy delivery.

McGregor’s hero’s journey from rags to riches is explored and considered and conveys the narrator’s obviously mixed feelings about McGregor; was he a loveable rogue like Johnson or Farage, or a more dangerous variety of parasite like Trump or Musk? And are electric cars and Crypto Currency the new Poyais?

Rees wonders out loud if McGregor’s selling of the dream of Poyais, marked his passage from the normal life of men to the echelons of the elite. Paid with 150 souls.

A vision, a new idea is like a trip to the theatre, it is like a promise, an offer that you receive on trust, on the premise that by the end you will be more clever, more enlightened, or at least more entertained than before.

Rees has obviously tried to fabricate a product from the materials he has researched, and this Scottish premier certainly creates a fascinating lecture on a highly entertaining topic, with plenty of comedic interludes. However, try as he might, lacking in any real drama or emotion, Liam Rees ultimately fails to bridge that gap to a fully-fledged theatrical performance.

Reviewer: Greg Holstead

Reviewed: 14^th March 2025

North West End UK Rating: