McNeill of Tranent: Fastest Man In The World

By Jack Nurse, Robbie Gordon & George McNeill

George McNeill was born in Tranent, a small Scottish mining town. He began his career as a part-time professional footballer, signing for Hibernian at sixteen, before becoming the fastest man in the world.

Giving up football to concentrate on athletics, he was banned from running as an amateur due to his professional football career, meaning he could never compete in the Commonwealth or Olympic Games. Despite this, he went on to break the professional world record and win a professional world sprint title in 1972. However, with all of these successes, George’s story is still mostly unknown to the wider world…until now.

Told by McNeill himself, this one-man show in collaboration with Wonder Fools, depicts his remarkable true story with hilarious anecdotes, archival film footage and music. He was never McNeill of Great Britain, he was not even McNeill of Scotland, he remained McNeill of Tranent -“The Fastest Man in the World”.

8

Live performances

1750

Audience Members

20

Locations across Scotland

2

National tours

Directors and Designers
Jack Nurse
Robbie Gordon

Producer
Hector Macpherson Brown

Photography

Jassy Earl Photography

Cast
George McNeill