Abstract/Summary

This chapter explores the legacies of John McGrath and 7:84 Scotland’s seminal production The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil (1973) both by considering its original contexts and reception, and also through the lens of a major revival of the play at Dundee Rep in 2015. In particular, it details the ways in which responses to the revival were shaped by of the combined effects of neoliberalism and an insurgent Scottish Nationalism. It concludes that contemporary concerns over Scotland’s national destiny were effectively mapped onto McGrath’s play by critics via a fusion of radical and nationalist agendas, and that this fusion diluted its ideological rigour. The criteria against which The Cheviot’s relevance was being judged had shifted substantially in the almost half-century since the original 7:84 Scotland production and McGrath’s explicitly internationalist reading of Scottish history became obscured.