The Guardian 5 March 2026

The title is ironic. There is nothing legendary about Davie McKenzie. Scarcely out of prison after doing time for possession, the fictional hero of this lunchtime play ends up dead, having scored a batch of tainted drugs. It is three days before anyone even notices.

That sounds like a spoiler, but it happens surprisingly early in a play that is less about a worthless death than a meaningful life. Surviving him is his cellmate and childhood friend Sean Molloy, good-natured despite circumstance dealing him a bad hand. Naive and powerless he might be, he is desperate to invest significance in the life of a friend who has died so young and needlessly. [READ MORE]

By Mark Fisher

MARK FISHER is a freelance theatre critic and feature writer based in Edinburgh and has written about theatre in Scotland since the late-1980s. He is a theatre critic for The Guardian, a former editor of The List magazine and a frequent contributor to the Scotsman and other publications. He is the co-editor of the play anthology Made in Scotland (1995), and the author of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide (2012) and How to Write About Theatre (2015) – all Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. He is also the editor of The XTC Bumper Book of Fun for Boys and Girls and What Do You Call That Noise? An XTC Discovery Book (both Mark Fisher Ltd).