SMILE: The Jim McLean Story, Dundee Rep, February 20

Raging on to the set from a side door that might as well have been a time machine back to the drafty corridors of a post-match 1980s football stadium, veteran actor Barrie Hunter has only been on stage a few seconds when the audience are treated to a red-faced, vein-bulging, phlegm-spitting portrayal of former Dundee United legend Jim McLean.

“You, referee!” screams Hunter, looking remarkably like the revered former manager and chairman of the Tannadice club as he rolls up his shirtsleeves and squares up to the door of the match officials’ changing room, seemingly in the mood for a post-match fight.

“I know you’re in there. What the f*ck was that out there today? Do you know the laws of the game? What is it you don’t understand about somebody being off f*cking side? I honestly believe you made every one of those decisions today just to wind me up! Well let me tell you – you f*cking failed! I have kept the heid!”

As the audience roars in laughter at this powerful, humour-edged nod to the perfection-seeking, greetin’-faced moan, public reputation of the man that led Dundee United to glory (and almost glory) in the 1970s and 80s, it’s immediately apparent that the wrytitling of Philip Differ’s Smile is apt.

What follows over 65 minutes is a fantastic, well-written, wellacted and far from sugar-coated portrayal of Jim McLean that does more than make the audience smile – it has them in stitches.

As if taking a look deep inside the psyche of the stereotypical, dour, Scottish Calvinist male, Jim – the tactical genius – lives up to his reputation of “tearing strips” from his players and the play doesn’t shy away from that day in 2000 when he infamously punched BBC sports reporter John Barnes live on air.

Chris Alexander does a great job playing everybody else.

But Differ, along with director Sally Reid, also do a magnificent job capturing the complexities of Wee Jim – bringing an emotional side that raises the question – who was, who is – the “real” Jim McLean?

Mindful that in real life the now 82-year-old is living with dementia in a Broughty Ferry care home, the scenes where Jim reflects that the “real enemy” is time and wishes he’d spent more of it reading stories to his children and dancing with his wife, are enough to well up – or “shed” – a few tears whether you are a football fan or not.