A History of Paper – Pitlochry Festival Theatre

Alan Cumming and Shirley Henderson in A History of Paper at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre. Picture: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

A History of Paper continues at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre until 12 September 2026, before transferring to Dundee Rep Theatre from 16-19 September 2026.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Maya Angelou once said: “People will forget what you said, they will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” It’s been two years, practically to the day, since A History of Paper took Edinburgh by storm, winning the Musical Theatre Review Award for Best Musical. It was so wonderful and made audiences laugh and cry and here is the same director, Andrew Panton, with Gavin Whitworth as musical director, opening a brand-new production with a brand-new cast.

The expectation in the audience was palpable. Can lightning strike in the same place twice?

Oh yes it can.

The set resembles a dark, bleak coast with the shore tipping towards the audience. The action takes place on myriad levels, like slate cliffs that appear solid until the cracks appear, hinting at something deeper, something below the surface.

Ana Inés Jabares-Pita’s set works superbly with Bruno Poet’s lighting, evoking a sense of place that could be anywhere or everywhere, but the performance is served brilliantly by these design skills: the directing impetus shows the characters playing with the space with fun, wit, sheer beauty and even evoking a dismal Scottish hogmanay on the east coast.

The words and the music are equally delicious: the late Oliver Emanuel (who co-wrote the piece with Gareth Williams) sadly never saw his work ‘on its feet’, but he would be dazzled by Alan Cumming and Shirley Henderson’s delivery. No laugh is left looking for its home as each and every one is delivered with such genuine glee. Their interplay is so natural, so easy and this is all thanks to trusting Emanuel’s text.

Williams has delivered a score of such delicacy that dovetails with the text effortlessly. The arrangements are outstanding, both in terms of the piano (played by Whitworth onstage) and the vocal performances. The repeating of a central theme is almost a ‘centring’ device, preventing the music and the characters from going too far for comfort, to keep them contained just like the amounts of paper being held in a box. A big cardboard box. A big cardboard box with a picture of a van on it.

Paper can indeed hold a story, hold a history through the words and numbers and pictures – to remember clearly before we forget.

Cumming and Henderson create magic together and we can hold that memory in the ticket, in the printed programme, and keep it somewhere safe to remember. This truly deserves to be remembered because you will never forget the way it makes you feel.

Take yourself to Pitlochry and create your own precious memory.

Fiona Orr