Last-minute winners. Walking out of Easter Road after yet another Edinburgh derby triumph. Qualifying for Europe. Trips to Hampden. The regular, or perhaps irregular, high points of being a Heart of Midlothian supporter.
Week to week there can be short-term highs mixed in with fresh lows. Deeper down the best thing about being a Hearts fan, or just a football fan in general, is the sense of community and the nostalgia, good and bad. The feelings and emotions that are everlasting. Because let's face it, if we simply relied on what happens between 3pm and 5pm on a Saturday or 7.45pm and 10pm during the week, we'd have all given up long ago. It's not sustainable.
Meeting up with friends, making a day of it, seeing the same faces at Tynecastle, at Dingwall, on a bus to the Basaksehir Fatih Terim Stadium in Istanbul. Talking about '98 and 2012. Discussing whether Hearts would have won the league under George Burley. Debating who'd you rather have in goals, Eduardas Kurskis or Joel Pereira.
When the football on the field doesn't deliver, reminiscing about the club's history does. All 150 years of it.
'This is ❤️ur Story' - 150 years of @JamTarts in 90 mins.
— Two Halves Productions (@TwoHalvesProd) June 28, 2024
🗓️ 24-29 July
🏟️ Tynecastle Park
🎟️ Book Now: https://t.co/bT0zUblOXK pic.twitter.com/HjkjU9M8Vq
Before Rangers come to Tynecastle Park a week on Saturday, that 150 years of history will be distilled into 90 minutes across six days starting tomorrow [Wednesday]. A reminder of why the club is so special. A reminder of why the good times should be celebrated and enjoyed and why to stick out the bad times. A tour de force of Hearts nostalgia.
Two Halves Productions, the producers which brought ‘A War of Two Halves’, 'Sweet F.A.' and 'Never Trouble Trouble (Till Trouble Troubles You)', deliver 'This is Our Story - 150 years of history in 90 minutes'.
"It’s been brilliant," Paul Beeson, writer and actor, told Hearts Standard. "We never get bored of doing stuff here. Every year we come back and do something. We’re like two wee boys coming to the football!
"Not just coming here every day and working here, but it’s actually quite important. And Hearts have been so good at supporting the work we do, especially this. It is the 150th year and it’s a big deal.
"Being a community-focused club, that’s so important. Hearts get so much right. It’s always great to work here and create work that’s about Hearts. You are taking our two biggest loves outside of friends and family – Hearts and theatre – and we are mashing it all up, so what’s not to love?"
Bruce Strachan, director and producer, added: "It’s a real privilege. Hearts deserve an awful lot of credit because other clubs not far from here, we know that they’re not interested in that. Whereas Hearts get that understanding your history and your heritage is an absolutely crucial part of being a fan."
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There are six showings of the play, starting on Wednesday evening and running until Monday evening. Those attending will sit in Secton S and look down onto a purpose-built stage in the Main Stand.
There will be seven performers which includes a live band and fans can expect to hear a variety of versions of the Hearts Song, from the 1920s to a disco version, as they tackle the good, bad and ugly of the club's history in 10 scenes. From the Terrible Trio to Dens Park to the Romanov era and the Foundation of Hearts. There will be original songs as well as one or two jibes at a certain club from across the city.
"It will look busy," Beeson said. "But part of the fun – and we discovered this doing the Bobby Walker show last year – is having a smaller cast but playing a lot of different characters.
"There is a lot of fun to be had from that from a performer’s point of view because it gives you lots of interesting things to do. But from an audience point of view, I always think it is quite fun to see one actor being several different people. You get to see the versatility there, rather than having one massive cast.
"I also think having too many people would detract from all the information we’re trying to cram in. I think having a smaller cast allows the audience to wrap their head around all the stats, rather than having too many voices.
"I get to do a monologue as Bryan Jackson convincing Lithuanian shareholders to hand the shares over during the administration era. It’s not a big comedic thing or anything but I think as a Hearts fan, looking at what he is saying about the club in that moment, it’s a really important thing that I am looking forward to getting my teeth sunk into. It’s quite a serious moment in the show so that’s one of mine."
Strachan added: "You’re going to be sitting next to the pitch talking about a game that happened there. The ghosts of that are still sort of right there, and you can’t really beat that. So we use that in terms of knowing you might remember a winner when you were sitting in the stands at Tynecastle, and then you’re looking up at where it took place."
But how do you distill so much history into 90 minutes? Research and ruthlessness.
Beeson noted that a play could have been done on the 1950s alone while the "phenomenal" London Hearts was a huge help.
"Writing and researching it has been a bit harder than normal because we would usually have a small window in time that we would focus on," he explained. "For example, in The War of Two Halves, you’re essentially focusing on a two-year period in Hearts’ history. Bobby Walker was a bit more ambitious because his story spanned quite a long time but again, his Hearts career was 18 years or something like that. This is 150 years. So we started off looking at each era and going ‘what do we want to talk about?’.
"Having done A War of Two Halves and Never Trouble Trouble, we knew about Bobby Walker’s time and the late 1800s/early 1900s, and we knew about McCrae. And from our own personal experience following Hearts from the ‘80s onwards, we were knowledgeable enough to talk about Dens Park and 86, cup finals, et cetera. There was this window between the ‘20s up until the end of the ‘70s that we were a little unsure about.
"You can’t talk about every player, every manager, every team. There has to be a limit but hopefully we have got enough highlights peppered throughout. It has been quite a difficult process trying to get all that information in – and trying to do it in an entertaining way where you’re not just repeating stats at an audience for 90 minutes."
It is certain to be entertaining, emotional, amusing and, it is hoped, educational. The duo are aware there will be those in attendance who know every little detail which poses its own challenge of ensuring the detail on the granular level needs to be spot on.
Strachan gave examples of one of the cast members rehearsing at home only for her Hearts-supporting partner to correct one of the lines that was uttered around the 2012 Scottish Cup final and of a tweet of the cast pointing to the penalty spot and one fan naming the moment in the club's history.
Yet, there will be those in attendance who have no connection to the club or others who may get a better understanding and appreciation of eras they know little about or have only heard from family members or fellow Jambos.
"There will be lots of nostalgia, so fans of all different ages will take something different from it I suppose," Strachan said. "We barely remember 1986, for example, but there will be people slightly older than us in the audience who will have been there and it will still be quite a raw experience. But the whole point of doing this show is that you can’t ignore the bad times and only focus on the good times. Apart from anything else, for a Hearts show it would be quite short if we only focused on the victories!
"I’m sure everyone thinks their club is special but this club has had some amazing things happen over the years, both good and bad. More so than most others. And when you start to realise the patchwork nature of the history of the club...."
This is Our Story has been in the pipeline for a number of months but due to the footballing schedule dates weren't pinned down until Hearts knew exactly when they would be playing at Tynecastle and writing was taking place "right up until the last minute".
Now they are ready to bring 150 years of Heart of Midlothian Football Club to life.
This is Our Story runs from Wednesday, July 24 to Monday, July 29. There will be a show at 7.30pm each day with a show at 3pm on Saturday and Sunday. Purchase tickets HERE with season ticket holders and Foundation of Hearts pledgers eligible for concession prices.
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