Strathpeffer Pavilion, 15 December 2005

© Dave Allison/Strathpeffer Pavilion

THE SCENE IS SET for a truly medieval mystery play, which makes a welcome change from the usual fare of Christmas pantos at this time of year.

The hall is well decorated and has a home-made feel to it, with cut-out cardboard decorations suspended from above – clouds and stars and cherubs – and drapes over the balcony in rich reds.

A slide projection of William Blake’s famous painting, ‘The Ancient of Days’, presides over us. Its God-like figure of an old man with flowing white hair bears a set of compasses as he reaches down from on high. Indeed throughout the play there are a series of projections by way of two overhead screens, which give a definite flavour of the medieval era.

These comprise of paintings, woodcuts and other prints, which tell the story of Genesis and other events from the Old Testament, and the story of Christ’s birth. Not a scrap of tinsel anywhere – which is really quite refreshing in our world, where retail giants are reminding us of December before we even reach Halloween!

A choir, singing an old carol, enter in procession from a corner and position themselves at one end of the playing area. The audience are seated in traverse on either side of the playing space, which makes for a very intimate performance.

Opposite the choir are a group of fabulous musicians, led by Alpha Munro on her fiddle. Alpha wrote much of the music, which is entirely in keeping with the setting and creates a wonderful warm atmosphere for this festive time.

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All in all this was a very family friendly production but without the sugary sweetness of some modern-day fairytales.

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The band included several school pupils and community members who were also playing fiddles plus whistles and flute, cello and guitar. The highlight for me was Katie MacKenzie on her clarsach, which provided some wonderful accompaniment – especially for the pure voice of a solo Gaelic singer, Fiona MacKenzie, who won the gold medal at this year’s National Mod.

A percussion section led by Steve Sharpe very ably provided sound effects throughout the play, which created some sense of humour with excellent timing. The people in this group are all adults with learning disabilities from the FALCON Project, which makes a lot of sense since this production is a collaboration between Eden Court and Artlink Highland.

Indeed there were so many different community groups and schools involved in the making and performing of this show that it must have been some feat of organisation and direction to bring them all together and make it work. The groups did not meet up at all until 2 days before the first performance and I think John Batty and Alpha Munro did a tremendous job to make it all hang together so well.

The casting of the play was entirely fitting, and included Abraham, suitably aged with his long grey locks; the three shepherds, who were appropriately rough and ready in character and created some humour in the play; and Mary whose face was wide-eyed and open and the picture of innocence.

Movement was used very well and simply in the scenes telling of Noah and his ark, and Peter Langlands as Lucifer, the Snake and Satan gave a descriptive portrayal of his evil roles. In some places this was accentuated by sound effects of the “nail scraping down a blackboard” variety which made the devil’s presence positively spine chilling!

Perhaps best of all were the scenes with Herod (Callum Murdoch) who seemed barely 4 foot in height, but ruled the roost like a sergeant major intoxicated by his own sense of power. His army of soldiers were hilarious, completely in unison and looked like they had developed their marching routines from the Monty Python “School of Funny Walks”!!

God was played in an entirely appropriate and very straight manner by a young but very authoritative Joe Setch, who perched throughout the action on the top of a ladder.

And perhaps one of the funniest moments was when the Innkeeper’s Wife, played by Ewa MacKenzie, lost her lines in the middle of a soap box routine about the irresponsible behaviour of men and spontaneously managed to turn this on its head when prompted from the side by yet another male voice!

The pace of the play rolled along nicely and the direction came into its own with the scene portraying Herod’s army carrying out their massacre of all male infants under the age of two. In this, soldiers armed with spears and axes ran in and out of the space in a chaotic shambles while tossing white bundles to represent the babes clothed in swaddling.

The scene struck a fine balance between the macabre and something that was utterly gruesome. Throughout the killings the audience was kept laughing by the muddle of soldiers as they bumped into each other and threw infant children between them like rugby balls. It really brought out the brutality of an event that can sometimes seem very removed in history and yet still very relevant for our time.

All in all this was a very family friendly production but without the sugary sweetness of some modern-day fairytales. The medieval mystery play format complete with a smattering of earthy language was a refreshing change, and my only regret was that the capacity of the space could not have been bigger. There were barely 100 people there to make a full house.

However, the show ended on an upbeat as the band broke into a ceilidh following the bows and some of the less shy of the audience got up from their seats and joined in the dancing.

© Helen Slater, 2005