Here are three plays which aren’t yet published: a junior, a youth and an adult. As with the pantomimes, I’d be delighted if other drama groups want to use them, and very happy to give any help I can.  This photograph shows Donald Anderson as Simon and Izzy Swanson as The Boat in the final scene of Triangles.

The Voyage of the Diana

The Voyage of the Diana was performed with a large cast of 8-11 year olds – we had exactly the same number as the real crew. Diana of Hull was a whaling ship which was trapped in Arctic ice for a whole winter. A number of the crew were Shetlanders, and in April she returned to Shetland, crewed by men who had become walking skeletons. The ship’s surgeon, Charles Edward Smith, kept a diary, from which I wrote this account. As I explain in the script, each scene centred around mime work. The youngest crewman on board, Christopher Tait, was a local man, and was played by one of his descendants.

Bairns these days

Bairns these days ... (spend all their time on computers not like when we were young...) This large-cast play was performed by first-year secondary pupils. It follows three families: Family 1 has three children who do different hobbies as well as helping with croft work, and for the parents, particularly the mother, getting each child to the right activity is a miracle of logistics. Family 2 has a child who has to be nagged over music practice; Dad is keen, Mum doesn’t want to force him. Family 3 has a football-mad son who’s horrified to be forced to his mum’s netball match, but ends up enjoying it (yes, the netball match was live on stage, the adjudicator loved it). Running between the family scenes is the story of  Leona, who is suffering a parental break up. This was great fun to do, and everyone was kept well occupied, as they were on stage throughout, with the main action happening in the middle.

 Triangles

Triangles was written originally as a radio play and on the face of it seemed an unlikely choice for a festival – I mean, a play asking for  boat on stage...? It’s a sailing play, but it’s also about friendship in changing circumstances, and about dreams and how we restrict ourselves to racing round in triangles when there’s a whole world out there. The scenes move from present day to past and back. The ‘boat’ was simply a length of white cloth draped back from the ‘prow’, with a ship’s wheel inside it, and a lot of ‘at sea’ sound effects from my talented husband.