Twelve teams contest Orkney drama festival
(Story dated: February 25, 2003)

The 2003 Scottish Community Drama Association festival begins tonight, Tuesday evening, at the Arts Theatre in Kirkwall and continues until Friday, February 28.

Here we present a synopsis of each of the 12 plays competing in the local drama festival. The descriptions have been provided by the clubs themselves. They appear in the alphabetical order of the club names.

Excerpts from ’Allo ’Allo, by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft
(Birsay Drama Group)

’Allo ’Allo follows the adventures of René the café owner and his wife Edith as they struggle to keep for themselves a priceless portrait stolen by the Nazis and kept in a sausage in the cellar. René is also hiding two British airmen and is endeavouring to repatriate them with the help of the Resistance. Matters come to a head with the news that the Führer is to visit the town and the café becomes filled with tricksters impersonating Hitler. René needs all his wits about him to save his café and his life.

Mother Figure, by Alan Ayckbourn
(Deerness Drama Group)

When Rosemary calls on Lucy, all is clearly not well. Lucy is still in her dressing gown and pyjamas and says she hasn’t been out for weeks. It seems to Rosemary that Lucy hasn’t spoken to another adult for weeks either. Lucy is totally preoccupied with her three children and pays scant attention to anything Rosemary has to say. When Terry, Rosemary’s husband, turns up, things take a turn for the worse: all is not well in their house either. Lucy is really in no fit state to cope with their traumas and responds in the only way she knows how!

Flash, by Lindsay Hall
(Hoy and Walls Entertainment Group)

A hospital bed, an ominous tone. Is this the end? Surely not, the play has only just begun. This could well be another of those tragic examinations of man’s innate frailty. A dark study of the random nature of fate. The utter helplessness of the human condition. Luckily, every cloud has a rose-coloured lining and what could well have been a Greek tragedy is more comic than black. We laugh with Flash and not just at him, for is there not a little of him in all of us?

Out for the Count, by Martin Downing
(Orphir Drama Club)
A vampire count from Transylvania visits a lunatic asylum with “romantic” intentions and near fatal results.

Footprints in the Sand, by Colin Crowther
(Palace Players)

A man facing a protracted and painful terminal illness comes to a deserted beach, despondent and raging. He meets a mysterious woman who tells him of the place’s history: nearby, in the 5th century, Dwynwen, maid-in-waiting to the queen, deserted her faithless lover to live alone away from deceitful humanity. Dwynwen appears with her old nurse, who attempts to coax her home; in enlisting the man’s support she opens his eyes to the love and care of others which will help him through his ordeal.

The Devil’s Grandson, by Kenneth Lillington
(Palace Players -Youth)

In a dressing room of a rundown music hall, a comedian and a magician struggle to please the audience. However, one member of their audience has a devilish plan.

A Jolly Sinister Jape, by Elliot Strange
(Rousay Drama Club)

It’s the 1920s, and a perfectly ghastly evening! Two chaps and a spiffing gal arrive at an apparently deserted English country house, looking for some shelter from the bally storm. But all is not as it seems. Is it someone’s idea of a jape? If so, it’s a jolly sinister one...!

La Donna Immobile, by Raymond Taylor
(St Andrews Drama Club)

The action of the play takes place in the Prima Donna’s dressing room in L’Opera Comique during the last night of the 1925 production of “Tosca.”

The next opera is to be Carmen but Donna Francesca Maria Borgese is furious to learn that although she has been Prima Donna in Carmen for 20 (or was it 25?) years, the coveted role is to be given to her much younger understudy Mademoiselle Michelle Ann Marie. La Donna tells Salvini Papageno, her manager, that if he wishes to stay her manager then he must make L’Director change his mind otherwise she is going back to lock herself in the bathroom and not appear on stage for the very last act of “Tosca.”

L’Director, of course, asks Michelle to take over but with the help of her dresser GiGi and GiGi’s boyfriend, Gaston, La Donna had already taken care of that possibility. Watching over it all from her chair upstage is Madame Caspari, stage director of L’Opera Comique, survivor of six marriages and an untold number of bottles of brandy, who gently brings proceedings to a close.

Waiting for a Bus, by Peter Barnes
(Stromness Drama Club – Brinkies)

An eternal triangle - but all may not be what it seems. “Lies are an important part of tragedy,” says Paul, but “comedy is truth telling.”

Act One of The Hardman, by Tom McGrath and Jimmy Boyle
(Stromness Drama Club – Greenvoe)

This is the fictionalised account of the latter writer’s career in crime in the ganglands of the East End of Glasgow. It charts his descent from teenage truant and shoplifter to the hardman of the title -a fixer who could sort out life’s little problems quickly and efficiently. On the way, we meet many other residents of the Gorbals: the gossiping women, commenting on Byrne’s exploits – Boyle’s alter ego – the failed criminal, the victims and perpetrators of gangland crime, prostitutes and the police. This play contains strong language and scenes of a violent nature, making for a realistic portrayal of life in the under-privileged areas of Glasgow during the late twentieth century.

Sweethearts (Act ll), by W S Gilbert
(Stromness Drama Club -Hamnavoe)

Although this play has its moments of humour, it is not a comedy.

In Act l (not being performed on this occasion) we find Mr Henry Spreadbarrow saying goodbye to Miss Jenny Northcott. He is leaving to go and work in India.

Act ll takes place 30 years later. Henry (now Sir Henry) returns from India and is “whiling away a day in his native place, and amusing himself with polishing old memories -bright enough once, but sadly tarnished.” He returns to the garden where he said goodbye to Jenny but is unprepared for what he discovers.

Spud Ferret and the Case of the Stolen Diamonds, by Jeff Gallagher
(Stromness Drama Club – Youth)

A remarkable collection of characters is assembled at Blip Mansion – Lady Blip’s delightful country home in the heart of rural Wastemoreland – for a weekend house party. But disaster strikes! Lady Blip’s priceless diamonds disappear, and it seems that one of the household must be the culprit – but which one? Fortunately, the world’s greatest detective is on hand . . .