Last night was a busy one for Moray-based actress, Morna Young, winner of New Playwrights Award 2014, as she was starring in the stage version of Sunset Song at Eden Court at the same time as the play she wrote, Never Land was being staged in the building’s One Touch Theatre.
Directed by well-known Highland actor, Jimmy Yuill (EastEnders, Wycliffe) and starring Benny Young who has appeared in the films, Chariots of Fire and Out of Africa, the play was created as a result of an Eden Court project dedicated to developing the production of theatre in the Highlands.
Starring alongside, and putting in fine performances, are graduate actors, Fiona MacNeil (Peanut), Chris Beaton (Toots), Ewan Petrie (Sly) and Rebecca Wilkie (Tink).
It tells the story of teenage Patricia, aka Peanut, who is lying in a coma, hooked up to life-saving machines, after a near-fatal car accident, all of which are suggested by off-stage sounds.
She wakes in a sort of Never Land, a shadowy place between life and death, where she meets a man and asks for directions but when he points out that she can’t be lost, because she doesn’t know where she wants to go, the story gets really interesting.
Having agreed to play by his rules in return for directions, she then meets three other characters, Tink, Sly and Toots, who are also trapped here and who play a series of games with her, which in this land that’s free from the usual constraints of time and space are pretty grim such as an attempted rape and being trapped in a burning car.
Thought provoking, it drives home the message that life, no matter how miserable at times, is a precious thing and the decision to end it may not be in our own hands.
Special mention must go to Fiona MacNeil who put in a strong performance demonstrating both frailty and strength and also revealing a lovely singing voice too. Definitely a name to watch out for.
The play is now on tour visiting Golspie, Clashmore, Strathy, Achmore, Skye, Ullapool, Lewis, Barra and North Uist over the next two weeks.