Last character played by Andy Gray to return in butchers' shop play set in leafy Edinburgh district
Steak Out tells the story of a heist on a Stockbridge butcher’s shop
When Edinburgh actor and writer Ruaraidh Murray last put on a play at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2018, it was tragically cut short after one performance when veteran actor Andy Gray, who was due to star in the production with fellow panto star Grant Stott, discovered he had been diagnosed with leukaemia.
Now Murray is to return to the festival, with a new production about a robbery at a butcher’s shop in Edinburgh’s leafy Stockbridge district - where he will take on the role of Archie - the character Gray had been due to play.
Gray, who was known for TV shows including Naked Video as well as his pantomime work, had been due to portray Archie in Murray’s The Junkies, a play about a family which ran a junkyard, died three years later after contracting Covid during the pandemic. Murray was to play Choo Choo.
“Unfortunately, the Junkies was only on for one night because tragically, after the first show, Andy got diagnosed with leukaemia, so we pulled the show, which was the right thing to do,” said Murray. “Although The Junkies never happened because sadly, Andy became ill, the characters of Archie and Choo Choo stayed with me, and so Steak Out started to take place.”
Steak Out, which is to be performed at Gilded Balloon’s newly-refurbished Teviot venue, tells the story of Archie as a Pilton butcher who is down on his luck two days before Christmas. With the help of his family, he decides to rob Smedley’s, a fictitious butcher’s shop in the wealthy Stockbridge district, where he previously worked, to steal meat to sell in his own shop.
Murray, who grew up in Stockbridge, believes the play’s hyper-local Edinburgh setting will be a draw for an international audience.
“I think people coming to the Fringe want to see something genuine from where they’re staying, to see a real slice of Edinburgh,” he said. “It’s that personal vs universal, it’s a personal story and this is something you won’t see anywhere else.
“Being born and bred in the city, I just want to tell stories that are off the beaten track. I was thinking about families at Christmas - for a lot of people, it’s a happy time, but there are also a lot who are skint at Christmas, it’s a lot of pressure. For this particular family I’ve written about, it’s like a tsunami, where Archie is going to lose his butcher’s shop and the matriarchal character, Karen, is going to lose her house.”
Mr Murray, 50, added: “I’m born and bred in Stockbridge. I went to Stockbridge Primary and Broughton High School along the road. I was so lucky to come from there, it’s such a beautiful place, but when I was growing up, there were a lot more families, a lot more working class kind of vibe, it was a lot more mixed. I’ve got a real fondness for the place.”
Another play by Murray, a prequel featuring the same family 30 years earlier called Chips, is being developed with lunchtime theatre series A Play, Pie and a Pint and is set to be performed next year.
Steak Out has been developed with 4Play at Traverse Theatre and with Playwrights’ Studio Scotland, with the support of a £2,500 grant from arts patrons Margaret Duffy and Peter Wilson.