Sam Went answers our questions ahead of The Wolf of Poyais heading to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

The Wolf of Poyais is an unsettling and darkly prescient show based on the astonishing true story of Gregor MacGregor, the Scottish conman who convinced hundreds of people to invest in - and emigrate to - a country that never existed. Reimagining one of the nineteenth century’s most audacious fraudsters for the age of cryptocurrency, wellness gurus and get-rich-quick culture, the show asks why people still want so badly to believe the impossible. We chat with writer Sam Went about scams, cypto and finding something to like in a monster.

How did you first come across the story of Gregor MacGregor and what was the moment that made you think, "This has to be a play"?

I first came across Gregor MacGregor on an episode of the Revolutions podcast. Because he was a General during the Spanish American Wars of Independence, Mike Duncan did a bonus episode on Gregor MacGregor, his ludicrous life story and, of course, the Poyais scheme. And I just found the thing so hilarious I could not stop telling other people about this story, it became my party piece to tell the story of Gregor MacGregor and maybe because they enjoyed it, maybe because they were sick of hearing it and wanted me to tell it to someone else my friends encouraged me to turn the Gregor MacGregor story into my next play.

Why did you decide to bring MacGregor into the 21st Century as a modern motivational speaker and self-help guru rather than as a purely historical figure?

The story of Gregor MacGregor is full of things we rightly consider him a monster for, lying to get money out of people, breaking the law and getting away with it with a smile, destroying the lives of the people who tried to blow the whistle on him and a total disregard for the people who got hurt or died in his pursuit of riches. But what stuck out for me is that these same qualities and actions that have led to history calling MacGregor a monster, we celebrate in modern day entrepreneurs.

I studied Economics and Business at A Level (for my sins) and part of that curriculum was learning about successful entrepreneurs and all of them seemed to have gotten to where they were through exploitation, deception and often criminal activity. Many had blood on their hands. And yet they were framed as moral paragons, people we should look up to and emulate. The horrible things they had done and were still doing were okay, good even, because they’d got rich as a result. And this attitude is not confined to my old classroom. It is pervasive across culture, news media and government

The “Entrepreneur” has taken on a pseudo-religious role within contemporary western society. Entrepreneurs are what we should aspire to be, our societies should be engineered to benefit this class, and we should look to them for guidance on how society should be run. They have become the priests of an evangelical capitalism, with figures like Tony Robbins, Jordan Belfort and Rachel Hollis giving self-help seminars that resemble, more than anything, evangelical mega churches.

Frankly, I wanted to call out the idea that evil behaviour is acceptable if it makes money. And by placing a monster like Gregor MacGregor in the cult of the entrepreneur, justifying the things he did through the cult of the entrepreneur I hope to call this attitude out.

How much research went into the piece, and what's the most outrageous thing Gregor MacGregor got away with that audiences assume you've invented?

So the primary source for the play, at least for MacGregor's life, was The Land That Never Was: Gregor MacGregor and the Most Audacious Fraud in History by David Sinclair. I supplemented this with journal articles and speaking to a couple of historians, though this was more for general questions on the period and what was going on around the Poyais scheme, rather than about MacGregor’s life. I also read biographies of many of the entrepreneurs whose stories I was drawing parallels between and MacGregor’s life. But if I had to name a second primary course for the play it would be Attack of the 50ft Blockchain by David Gerard, a scathing takedown of crypto scammers (which is all crypto). I wanted to make the play relevant to a modern audience by drawing parallels with modern scams and I wanted to pick one scam in particular so I wasn’t trying to cram 100 things into 60 minutes. Cryptocurrency seemed the modern scam that best paralleled the Poyais Scheme, both being hype driven financial bubbles based on something that claims to have a use, a currency that could actually buy things in one case and a country in the other, but in reality that thing doesn’t exist. I recommend everyone read The Land That Never Was and Attack of the 50ft Blockchain if they can.

How do you approach writing a character who is both charming and morally indefensible? Did you sometimes find yourself sympathising with him?

The problem was, I really didn’t. I found MacGregor funny, I found his story entertaining, but I didn’t like him as an individual. Which made it really difficult to write about. You need to find something admirable in your subject, something you can connect with, or you end up writing them as a two-dimensional villain and that’s not interesting for an audience. So I had to go looking through his story to find things in his character I liked and the thing I settled on was he really loved his wife. He took Josefa with him everywhere, while most of the Revolutionary Generals left their wives and girlfriends behind when they went to war, MacGregor always makes the effort to bring Josefa with him. Josefa fights beside him at the Battle of Chaguaramas with a lance! She was heavily involved in the Poyais Scheme, it was something they did together as a couple. And by centering that relationship in my own head I was able to see him as a whole human being and better build a whole emotional picture of MacGregor.

Working with a performer like Thom Tuck, how has his voice and comic instinct shaped the hour?

Thom is a generational comic talent, as anyone who has seen him perform can attest. I am still pinching myself a little that he’s doing our show! Having him as a voice in the rehearsal room is incredible and he’s always finding new ways to bring out the best in a joke or create a hilarious moment. But the thing I wasn’t initially expecting was the gravitas he is bringing to MacGregor. There’s a real weight and darkness to his MacGregor that’s different to how I initially saw it but is wonderful to watch and I think will surprise Thom’s long-time fans.

When audiences leave the theatre, what do you hope stays with them: the history, the laughter, or the parallels with now?

Am I allowed to say all three? If you sat me down and said I had to pick one thing I would like the audience to take with them it is a sense of skepticism. Skepticism towards those who, to quote a pamphlet written by a Poyais detractor, “promise to turn pennies into pounds” and skepticism towards those who society holds up as paragons despite the immense harm they have done and continue to do.

Is Gregor MacGregor a villain, a genius, or something more complicated?

I had to think of him as something more complicated to write the play. I settled on thinking of him as a man driven by an obsession with achieving success, whatever his definition of success was at any particular moment in his life, who felt like he had been thwarted when he tried to do it the right way and so resolved to do it the wrong way. In a way I came to write him as a tragic figure, a man so fixated on his own ambition it destroyed any moral sense or potential for true greatness he had.

But, ultimately, that’s a character I created in my own head. And if we look at the historical MacGregor, at the harm he caused and the hundreds of people he killed, I think we have to conclude he was a villain. But, with historical distance, an extremely funny one.

The Wolf of Poyais will be performed at 8:30pm at Assembly Roxy from 5th – 30th August. Booking link: https://assemblyfestival.com/whats-on/the-wolf-of-poyais