Whisky Galore

This was a classic selection of malts with character!   To see the show in the West of Scotland was an added bonus.   Based on Sir Compton MacKenzie’s tale which owes it origins to a real incident which occurred on Eriskay in 1941 but is set in this version in 1943 on the fictional islands Great and Little Todday, Act l sets the scene, introduces the players and prepares us for the spectacular grounding of the cargo ship SS Cabinet Minister.
In this gentle tale of islands with two religions and therefore complications (as true love does not recognise differences in religion), there are two couples in love – Peggy Macroon (Gill McGowan) and Sergeant Major Alfred Odd (Paul McWilliams); and Catriona MacLeod (Shona Paterson) and George Campbell (Andrew Wright) whose romances blossom nevertheless.    Carol McLaughlan was well cast in the role of Mrs Campbell (George’s mother) – a Wee Free and a bit of a dragon.   The would-be leading light of the community is Joseph Macroon (Jonathan Proctor), the Catholic owner of the Post Office and shop - offset by the Protestant Roderick Macrurie (Scott Sutherland), owner of the Snorvig Hotel.   The clergy were well characterised by Jim McPhee as the Reverend Morrison, the somewhat ineffectual representative of the Church of Scotland and certainly no match in the story to Ian Macgregor as Father MacAllister as the latter tries to hold the balance between the communities as Lent approaches.   Iain R Usher played the pompous Home Guard Captain Paul Waggett – about as effective as a certain bank manager in Dad’s Army – with Collette Dunsmore as Dolly Waggett.
The islands were lamentably dry for most of Act l but things improved substantially as the SS Cabinet Minister pushed her bow onto the rocks at the end of the Act – all carefully contrived on the stage by the ever inventive Stage Manager Wilson Miller.   Act ll is given up largely to the dispersal of the crates of whisky and beer “saved” from the shipwreck and the authorities’ fraught efforts to control the situation.   And of course, the romantic sub-plots come to fruition.
The writer of the libretto Ian Hammond Brown most kindly provided a page in the programme detailing the history of the writing and re-writing of the show from the inception of the idea in the Fringe production to the point now reached.   Another great achievement for JTPG.   

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