Buff Hardie and Steve Robertson first met in the Aberdeen Student Show in 1952. George Donald, another University of Aberdeen student, wrote music for the 1954 Student Show, but did not take part in it. So all three only met together later through the Aberdeen Revue Group, which is where they also found their future producer Jimmy Logan. (He later had to revert in public to his formal first name "James" in order to join the actors' union Equity, because there was already a Glaswegian comic using the professional name Jimmy Logan.) Buff Hardie had first appeared in the 1951 Student Show 'Spring in Your Step', and co-wrote the 1957 show "College Bounds". But it was after the 1968 student show "Running Riot" – which the four men wrote, composed, produced and directed – that the idea of putting on a show of their own at the Edinburgh Festival was first mooted. Jimmy Logan directed "Scotland the What?" from 1969 until his death in 1993.