Jake Mace
Ahead of the first game of the Euros 2024 between Scotland and Germany, Jamie is hoping Dad has bought him a golden ticket to be in the stands and support his country all the way to a fabled victory. When instead he’s handed the news that Mum has been diagnosed with a chronic illness, he becomes torn between responsibilities, spiralling home life, and trying to help his dad’s bike repair business with a chance opportunity to escape it all and make it to the game.
Writer-performer Aric Hanscomb-Ryrie draws together themes of class, family, social isolation, escapism and more in this jubilantly lively and vivacious piece. His portrayal of Jamie’s journey across fifty minutes is whiplash-inducing, as we see him connivingly convince a well to-do former school ‘pal’ into giving him a seat in the Land Rover over to the continent, before quickly being left on the roadside and to his own devices to make it in time for kick off.
Aaron Clason’s unrelenting direction pays off on multiple fronts – Jamie’s boisterous antics and light-hearted humour never feels alienating or ‘laddy’, and there’s a convincing back story to his breaking loose that floods with sensitivity and sentimentality when it arrives. Aric backs this up with a vibrant and frenetic performance that blends physical comedy neatly within the narrative. As we watch Jamie chance his way through Europe there’s no clues as to what’s up next for him, and Aric approaches the performance with such fervour and joy that becomes utterly infectious.
There are moments where pacing feels so unyielding that we don’t quite have time to connect with every character, and other moments where pauses when changing in between characters don’t hold up with the fervent nature of the rest of the narrative that feel clunky, though the whip-smart writing and charisma of the central performance pull the audience back into the story each time with ease.
References to Scotland’s national team are done with a light touch, never pushing any audience member to the side but offering a wink and a nod throughout to football culture, alongside the piece’s broader story taking the form wholly as a love letter to a working class youth in Edinburgh. Aric plays Jamie’s parents, pals, bullies and heroes with defined characterisation, and it paints a fantastically realised picture of the world Jamie has to navigate as someone who grew up with dreams, family, and little else.
Fantastically simple set and props evoke nostalgia for Scotland’s sporting past without overbearing the tight staging, which requires Jamie to be leaping, bounding and emphasising much of the storytelling throughout. Aric proves himself to be a captivating and entrancing storyteller, who drags the audience along every mile of this outlandish journey. While some of the miles travelled amongst the physical geography in such short distance laid out in the piece might be optimistic, there’s a pervading sense of magical realism throughout anyways that carries this off.
Boisterous, fresh and infinitely joyous, you’ll be pulled right into Jamie’s frantic journey in Nick It For Munich.
Recommended Drink: A fresh can of Tennents smuggled with you to the continent.
Performances of Nick It For Munich have now concluded at Dundee Fringe 2025.
Lamesha Ruddock
Jasmine Silk
