The play what I wrote

At last something has happened that I can write about (other matters being things that it would be unprofessional to relate.) We splashed out on a night in Kirkwall in order to attend the BBC recording of 'Mark Steel's in Town', a Radio 4 show in which the comedian goes to a town and takes the mickey out of it. He did Dartford proud (hard not to mock Dartford) but seemed on shakier ground wi' Kirkwall, possibly because he'd read the Orkneyinga Saga and discovered that these people's ancestors were seriously violent, a trait that still emerges in the annual contest of The Ba', one of those ruleless games in which the entire male population participates. The broadcast is on Wed. 12th May at 6.30.

Had Mr Steel hung around for a few more days, Flotta would have given him some additional material, because on Saturday it was the site of the WORLD PREMIERE of Ghosts in the Machine, a comedy written by your truly. I formed Flotta's first-ever Drama group last October and wrote a play for them to perform. Rehearsals had to be fitted round the pecularities of island life: all secondary-age kids are weekly boarders in Kirkwall; shopping and music lessons occupy Saturdays and Youth Club takes up Sat. nights; Sunday includes Sunday School and Kirk and adults who work at the oil terminal do 12-hour shifts. This left one hour per week to rehearse, so it was a miracle that we got it together on time. The plot concerned a group of ghosts who are doomed to spend all eternity on the Orkney island of Flirtay, a place where nothing happens, and the machinations of the Orkney Council, who are determined to spend even less on Flirtay than they do already so that they can go on all-expenses-paid trips to Norway. (Any resemblance between this bunch of incompetents and my employers is purely coincidental.)

Half the population of the island turned up; they all laughed in the right places; the cast of adults, teenagers and kids really did me proud. I only wish we could do the play again, seeing as they all worked so hard. We've been invited to do the play again at the Gable End Theatre on Hoy, but although the two islands are only 15 minutes apart, transport links are so useless that I fear it may be impossible. (On Fridays, I teach for 1hr 40 min. and spend nearly 4 hr. travelling, out of the house for 9hr in total.)

Meanwhile, Spring keeps attempting to spring, only to be driven back by winds straight from the Arctic. But the lambs are thriving, nonetheless!