Orkney Arts Society, Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney, 3 February 2012

BEFORE the evening’s entertainment commenced I was stopped in the street by several people during the day who wanted to know what a foy is.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is “A parting entertainment, present, cup of liquor, etc., given by or to one setting out on a journey. In different parts of Scotland applied variously to a party given in honour of a woman on the eve of her marriage; to a feast at the end of the harvest or fishing season; and the like.” It may be derived from the Dutch version of the French foie, meaning way or journey.

Cynthia Chaddock, John McGill, Morag MacInnes and Emma Grieve

It could also be the Johnsmas Foy which is performed during the St Magnus Festival in June. Certainly in Orkney, and Shetland, a foy has come to mean a celebration in words and music.

This is what we got at the Pier Arts Centre when master wordsmiths Morag MacInnes and John McGill performed their own work, Cynthia Chaddock read, and Emma Grieve told stories and sang.

McGill’s short story of life in the slums of a Glasgow tenement came with a warning of content of hideous depravity. His anti-religious fervour abounds, somewhat sweetly, as his Catholic protagonist is plagued with fearful imaginings of being damned. His only solution is to murder and mutilate his angelic niece who is a symbol of loveliness. There will be no wrangling over his soul and total forgiveness could only be met by total depravity. Spellbound by the realism and magic in the writing and telling, we were left standing on the edge of a cliff during the interval.

MacInnes brought dazzling poetry and prose; playing with the words of her native dialect. Her finesse is to stand outside to observe her island community and tell it from within; perhaps being a once-exiled Orcadian has added this gift.

A Christmas story about how granny made a tree when weather prevented the boat from delivering one could have been twee, but as granny gathers presents for the cat, the dog and the postie and assembles her Orkney tree we recognise island life with all its trials and blessings through our brief glimpses of her characters, and twee it is not. Her poem urging the Old Man of Hoy to escape and outwit the camera snapping tourists is a funny bid for independence.

Cynthia Chaddock’s melodious voice was rich and beautiful, but would have benefitted from slowing slightly to allow us to fully appreciate the nuances of her recitations of Gerald Manley Hopkins, her husband Clive’s poems, Bruce Chatwin, and a timely extract from Edward Gibbon’s the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire referring to the independence of the native Caledonians.

Emma Grieve gave a lively performance of stories including George Mackay Brown’s children’s story The Two Fiddlers and schoolgirl Alanna Swannay’s Battle o the Mackerel. Her solo singing included Partans in his Creel.

Traditional tunes were played by Stephen Flett on piano, Aidan White on fiddle and Isla Wallace on accordion, under the musical direction of Jean Leonard.

© Catherine Turnbull, 2012