John Byrne's giant pop-up book and its epic road trip

Picture the scene. It's October 1973 on the Isle of Skye. An over-sized pop-up book stands upright on a platform in Kyleakin Village Hall. The book's closed, with only its title visible: 'The Cheviot, The Stag And The Black Black Oil'.

As local people arrive for a performance many will never forget cast members set up costumes either side of the makeshift stage. A fiddler plays traditional Scottish tunes and cast and audience drum along.

The MC soon welcomes everyone and suggests kicking things off with a sing-a-long. After leading the audience through the lines, "For these are my mountains, And this is my glen, The Braes of my childhood, Will see me again", the MC pauses. "We've brought some mountains with us," he says. "Can we have the mountains please, lads?" There's a drum roll and the cast step onto the stage. They lay the cardboard book down and open it.

As the pages spread apart, a colourful, three-dimensional mountain scene pops up. Flowers are in bloom, a stag rears its head and a character in Highland dress walks with a dog by their side. It feels beautiful and serene, a stark contrast with the hard-hitting story about to unfold.

What is 'The Cheviot, The Stag and the Black, Black Oil' about?

This mountain scene, and four other spreads in the giant pop-up book, form the scenery for John McGrath's play ‘The Cheviot, The Stag and the Black, Black Oil’ (often known simply as 'The Cheviot'). First performed in 1973, the show tells the story of the exploitation of the Scottish Highlands from 1746 on.

The play opens with the Highland Clearances of the mid-1700s, when local crofters were brutally cleared from their holdings and replaced by herds of Cheviot sheep, who returned higher profits for landowners. Later, 'The Cheviot' mocks Victorian tourism and upper-class shooting parties on the hunt for deer. Finally, the story lands on the (then recent) discovery of oil in the North Sea. Once again, the audience hears, local people will lose out.

Lesser known stories of local resistance also feature and the play ends with a rousing call for everyone to keep up the struggle. The closing song from the 1890s was written in Gaelic by a woman whose own family had been cleared from Skye:

"Cuimhnichibh ur cruadal
Is cumaibh suas ur sroill,
Gun teid an roth mun cuairt duibh
Le neart is cruas nan dorn;
Gum bi ur crodh air bhuailtean
'S gach tuathanach air doigh,
'S na Sas'naich air fuadach
A Eilean Uain a' Cheo."

Though many audience members didn't need it, the MC translated these lines as:

"Remember your hardships and keep up your struggle
The wheel will turn for you
By the strength of your hands and hardness of your fists.
Your cattle will be on the plains
Everyone in the land will have a place
And the exploiter will be driven out."

A play that delivered a good night out

Despite the subject matter, 'The Cheviot' was unlike any serious play you might see in a formal theatre. While reframing two centuries of Scottish history, John McGrath wanted to give ordinary people "a good night out" wherever they enjoyed themselves. After an initial read-through at a conference in Edinburgh, that meant performing in clubs, community centres and village halls, where infrastructure was limited and audience members may never have seen another play.

McGrath and the 7:84 theatre company he founded with actress and wife Elizabeth MacLennan and her brother David brought history to life through quotations from original documents and news reports, Gaelic laments, traditional music and broad comedy. As they moved from village to village, they tweaked the script to reflect local issues and the latest headlines.

"People found it fresh, strange, moving, exciting and very, very funny" wrote MacLennan in her book about making theatre. "They stayed behind to talk, argue, dance and enjoy themselves". One young man who saw the play decided there and then to become an actor. "I wanted to be in plays like this one," he later said. "It's funny to think that one play changed the course of my life". After seeing the play in the Outer Hebrides, a Gaelic poet told McGrath he could now "die a happier man".

"That night in a community hall in Skye proved to me that theatre was far from dead… Here was theatre that spoke to you about your life, the important things, the daft things, the things that give you joy and the things you can change. The company were startling in their energy, anarchic versatility and joyous commitment."
Writer and director Davey Anderson, who saw 'The Cheviot' in Kyleakin Village Hall in October 1973

Who painted the 'The Cheviot' pop-up scenery?

Clearly any kind of traditional stage set would have been impractical for this unique travelling show. The scenery had to be transported on top of the company's minivan in all weathers. Plus, it needed to be compact enough to manoeuvre around small venues and strong enough to stand up on its own.

The solution came to McGrath and MacLennan as the couple read a pop-up version of 'Pinocchio' to their sons. "Our scenery", McGrath wrote in 'The Year of the Cheviot', "was a giant pop-up book, like children's pop-up books…made from strengthened cardboard. As you turn each page, a fresh 'set' pops up from in between the pages".

McGrath asked Scottish artist John Byrne to paint the pop-up scenes after seeing his work on 'The Great Northen Welly Boot Show'. This musical satire on the ship-building industry, co-written by Billy Connolly, who also starred, had launched a year earlier.

Byrne painted straight onto the cardboard book's pages with poster paints. "I think that I painted the pages first and then designed the various pop-up sections," he explained in 2018. "I drew an outline with a marker pen, cut the shape out with a Stanley knife, and then I painted the surfaces… I used water-based poster paints and sealed the pictures with a layer of shellac to make the set waterproof". The pop-ups were hinged with brown tape and raised up by an intricate arrangement of cords and pulleys. It was, says Maclennan, all executed with "wit and hard edges".

"We couldn't believe that anything could be so magical. It was a genuine work of art."
Original cast member Alex Norton describing the company's reaction to the pop-up book

The set of 'The Cheviot': scene by scene

The mountain scene, with a Highlander wearing plaid trousers, kicks things off as a cast member starts singing in Gaelic.
"It begins, I suppose, with 1746 – Culloden and all that. The Highlands were in a bit of a mess. Speaking – or singing – the Gaelic language was forbidden. Wearing the plaid was forbidden."

A white-washed thatched cottage, with a young girl standing in front, appears as a young Highlander reports that the Sutherland family had cleared people off their land.
"The women were great at making it all seem fine. But it was no easy time to be alive in."

The blackened ruins of a cottage, covered in blood, with a skull in the doorway appear as Patrick Sellar orders a cottage housing a 94-year-old woman to be set on fire.
"Damn her the old witch, she's lived long enough – let her burn."

An American Indian wearing a tasselled hide shirt and feather headdress stands beside two conical tents. This scene appears as Lord Selkirk explains his plan to ship Highlanders from Scotland to Canada.
"I have acquired a tract of land five times the size of Scotland and several boat loads of sturdy Highlanders… They must go to the Red River Valley and curtail the activities of the Northwest Company and their Indian friends."

A war memorial, with wooden crosses behind and blood-red poppies in front. This scene appears as the MC tells the story of a man whose house was pulled down immediately after he had enlisted to join the army in the Crimea.
"Every village has its memorial. Every memorial has its list of men. They died to defend something. Those who came back found very little worth defending."

The original mountain scene returns as cast members reel off data showing the ever decreasing population in the Highlands, from 1755 to "yesterday". It's then adorned with oil rigs as 'Texas Jim' echoes the song that began the show.
"For these are my mountains, And this is my glen, Yes, these are my mountains, I'll tell you again…"

Who was John Byrne?

John Byrne was an artist, designer and playwright. Born in Paisley in 1940, Byrne grew up on the Ferguslie Park housing estate and became an apprentice at a local carpet factory. He ground pigments in the 'slab room' there until he gained a place at Glasgow School of Art. Later, he returned to the company as a designer.

Illustration and design work in the 1960s and 1970s included Penguin book covers and album sleeves, which Byrne created for Donovan, The Beatles and friend Gerry Rafferty. Then, in 1972, his first venture into theatre was the set design for 'The Great Northen Welly Boot Show'. After painting 'The Cheviot' pop-up scenery Byrne created other sets and posters for 7:84 too. Until, that is, he gained success with his own plays.

Byrne's best-known play, 'The Slab Boys', tells the semi-autobiographical story of three young lads working in a Paisley carpet factory. First performed at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh in 1978, the play later transferred to the Royal Court Theatre in London, where Byrne won a 'London Evening Standard' award for Most Promising Playwright.

Almost a decade later, Byrne became known for TV Drama. His six-part show followed the fortunes of an old rock and roll band as they began a 25th anniversary tour aired on BBC Scotland in 1987. 'Tutti Frutti', which starred Robbie Coltrane and Emma Thompson, won six BAFTAs, including Best Drama Series, Best Graphics and Best Actress. Byrne followed this up with 'Your Cheatin' Heart' in 1990. Another comedy drama, this show was set in Glasgow's underworld.

A prolific creative, Byrne continued to write, paint and design into his eighties. He died in 2023, aged 83.

Where is 'The Cheviot' set now?

Back in 1973, 'The Cheviot' appeared in 100 shows. Travelling over 27,000 kilometres around Scotland in just one year, it was seen by tens of thousands of people. But when the play stopped running, the pop-up book stayed on the move.

For the next three decades the book was stored in various places across the Highlands, including Dunbeath Heritage Centre in Caithness. There it languished in an upstairs room for many years until it was rediscovered. The fact that such an unwieldy, dilapidated thing was always kept somewhere shows that its various custodians recognised it as something worth keeping.

When the National Library of Scotland acquired the stage set in 2009 it was in very poor condition – unsurprising for a well-travelled book made from corrugated cardboard, PVA glue and brown gummed tape. The spine was completely exposed and the sewing had deteriorated. The corners and edges had worn down and many of the pop-ups had become detached. Though the conservation team set about repairing and restoring the book, they deliberately retained evidence of its travels.

"It was considered important to retain the water stains, indentations, creases and bumped corners as evidence of the stage set's travels throughout the land whose story it was intended to tell."
Shona Hunter and Isobel Griffin, Conservator and former Head of Collections Care, National Library of Scotland

When John Byrne visited the conserved book at the Library, he was surprised by its condition: "Really, it's amazing that it has survived all this time. Of course, it looks a bit worse for wear as a result of its travels, and its age, but that's to be expected."

"The set did an awful lot of popping-up, and the hauling on-and-off the van at every venue, and the weather extremes to which roof-top travel exposed it – all took their toll. Many running repairs were done on the road…with string, duct tape and anything else that came to hand."
Sally Harrower, former manuscripts curator, National Library of Scotland

In 2012, almost four decades after it had been set up in Kyleakin Village Hall, the set returned to Skye for an event commemorating the 130th anniversary of the Battle of the Braes, a mass protest against the eviction of crofters. Then, in 2018, the book was out on the road again. Travelling in, not on, a van, it was headed for Dundee. Thanks to a 25-year loan the unfolded set is now on display in the Scottish Design Galleries at V&A Dundee, where thousands more people can see it alongside great Scottish furniture, textiles, ceramics and architecture.