A hoaxer who posed as a 17-year-old schoolboy while in his 30s has had his bizarre story turned into a film featuring Aberfeldy -born actor Alan Cumming.
Brian MacKinnon fooled school bosses into thinking he was a bright teenager from Canada called Brandon Lee.
Mr MacKinnon, now 59, attended Bearsden Academy for the first time in the 1970s, later gaining a place to study medicine at Glasgow University.
However, after a lengthy illness and repeatedly failing exams, he was expelled from the course.
At 30, still desperate to become a doctor, he permed his hair and shaved his eyebrows, enrolling once more in 1993 as a fifth-year student.
His cover story was accepted without question despite his older appearance and a near slip up when he remarked he could remember Elvis Presley’s death in 1977.
Mr MacKinnon claimed he had been travelling in Canada with his mother, an opera singer, when she died in a road accident.
He said his father had then sent him to Bearsden.
MacKinnon even starred in the school musical, gained six highers and was offered a place at Dundee University’s medical school.
But a tip-off about his true identity caused his fake life to unravel spectacularly.
His unmasking in 1995 was widely reported by the media.
Now, his story is being told in documentary My Old School – starring X-Men actor Cumming (56) – to be premiered at Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival in Utah, USA, this month.
Told from Mr MacKinnon’s perspective, My Old School – written and directed by former classmate Jono McLeod – includes an interview with Mr MacKinnon himself, lip-synched by Cumming, and reminiscences from school friends and teachers.
Writer and director Jono McLeod, an old school pal, said: “Brandon wanted to tell his story and grant me an interview but, for his own reasons, he didn’t want to be seen on camera.
“When he arrived he was a bit of a geek but, over the course of two years, he managed to become pretty popular.”
A line spoken by Cumming gives a sense of MacKinnon’s world view: “The thing you have to do if you really want to prevail is do the unimaginable.”
The Sundance programme describes the film as “the astonishing true story of Scotland’s most notorious impostor”.
The festival opens on January 20.
