Hercules the bear brought back to life on the stage

When Maggie Robin was first approached about a new play which would put her unconventional family centre stage, she had her doubts.

For 25 years, she and her husband, the Scottish wrestler Andy Robin, shared their home with Hercules, a 30 stone (190kg) grizzly bear.

“He was our boy,” says Maggie. “He wasn’t one of a crew of bears out the back. It’s our family story and it was so precious to us.”

For Tenterhooks Theatre Company, it was a chance to bring an astonishing story to a new generation with a new play using puppetry and clowning.

“We heard lots of people’s personal stories of seeing him scampering across the golf course or meeting him in a primary school or at a wrestling show,” says Suzie Ferguson, the puppeteer who brings Hercules to life both as a cute little cub and a full-sized adult.

“He even made the front cover of Time magazine.”

Hercules was born in captivity at the Highland Wildlife Park in Kingussie in 1975.

Andy had previously appeared on the same bill as a bear called Terrible Ted at a wrestling match in Canada and was keen to adopt and train a bear himself.

Maggie told BBC Scotland News: “I’m from a farming family, so I’m used to animals. But he seemed to be forgetting that this grizzly bear cub would one day be eight feet tall.

“There were three cubs and Andy immediately was drawn to Hercules because he was soft, and was always in with his mum, while the other two were tussling and falling over each other.

“So he named him Hercules and when he was asked to come up with names for the other two, he named them Atlas and Samson.

“And that was the start of our adventure.”

Andy and Maggie took Hercules back in a trailer to their home in Sherrifmuir, near Dunblane, stopping off for a snack on the way.

“There was a Little Chef near Pitlochry where we pulled in and had breakfast, and that was where we discovered Hercules’ favourite foods.

“He loved anything with tomato sauce so we took a roll with a wee bit of burger and some ketchup to the trailer in the car park.

“No one would have had any idea we had a bear cub in our trailer.”

Within a year, Hercules had grown into a 30 stone heavyweight, who made numerous public appearances with the Robins.

His fame was at its height in 1980 with a documentary commissioned by Andy, which led to a number of TV and film appearances.

But it would also give Hercules the opportunity to escape his showbiz life.

In August that year, while filming an advert for tissues in Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides, Hercules absconded.

For three days, hundreds of volunteers joined Andy and Maggie to look for him.

Then, for a further 21 days, the couple continued searching by themselves. Until Hercules was spotted swimming off the coast of the island.

He’d lost half his body weight as he was used to cooked meat and wasn’t able to fend for himself. But they took him home and he recovered.

And 45 years later, the team behind the new play went to Uist to follow in his footsteps.

“You would think it impossible to lose a huge grizzly bear on an island,” says puppeteer Suzie.

“But then we went to Uist and realised this is a bear-coloured island with bear- shaped hills and there’s vast amounts of landscape and water.

“It was actually really moving to think how Andy and Maggie must have felt.”

The tissue advertising campaign branded Hercules as “The Big Softy”, an image that endeared him to the millions of people around the world who had followed his story.

And his big adventure led to further film and television roles, including the James Bond movie Octopussy, opposite Roger Moore.

This allowed the family to move to Los Angeles, and upgrade Hercules’ den, which now included a swimming pool and jacuzzi.

But for Maggie, nothing ever rivalled the simple pleasures of their picnics in the Stirlingshire hills.

“We used to go up into the hills above Sheriffmuir and we’d sit under this waterfall,” she says.

“It was such a magical time.”

Hercules died in 2000 and Andy in 2019. Both are buried in Uist, where there’s a life-sized sculpture of Hercules.

And it was there that the theatre company first performed the show, which is now touring the rest of Scotland.

Maggie says she believes it’s a tribute to her unusual family.

“I speak to Andy and Herc every day,” she says.

“So when I saw the puppets and Suzie, who’s magnificent at all these movements. I was just blown away with it all.

“I feel so privileged that our story is being told on stage for the first time.”

Hercules the Bear is in Ayr, Edinburgh, Dunkeld, Cumbernauld, Crieff, New Galloway, Stranraer, Paisley, Glasgow, North Uist, Stornoway, Inverness, Cromarty, Banchory, Dunblane and Auchterarder as part of the Creative Scotland touring fund.