Skip to main content
Gifts from The Morning Star
Shades of Tay, Pitlochry Festival Theatre
Lockdown diversions from the heart of Scotland

DESCRIBED as a love letter to Scotland, Shades of Tay is intended as “a gift to those isolated by Covid-19 and those who feel isolated from theatre in general.”

[[{"fid":"23905","view_mode":"inlineright","fields":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"QUIRKY: Blythe Jandoo in This is Not Schiehallion","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"QUIRKY: Blythe Jandoo in This is Not Schiehallion","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"alt":"QUIRKY: Blythe Jandoo in This is Not Schiehallion","class":"media-element file-inlineright","data-delta":"1"}}]]Thus a line-up of 18 British playwrights, commissioned by Pitlochry Theatre’s artistic director Elizabeth Newman — among them Timberlake Wertenbaker, Jo Clifford and Hannah Khalil — are producing  weekly audio dramas, podcasts and short films performed by members of the theatre’s summer season’s ensemble.

Digitally available until late November, the series was launched with the 30-minute-long Beautiful Boy by Douglas Maxwell, a painfully moving lyrical monologue, delivered against a shifting, shimmering collage video of the river and its wooded landscape.

Self-pitying, self-accusatory but never sentimental, the vocal input is all important and Richard Standing captures the final reminiscences of a life trapped in failure as son, lover and artist with the  memories sparked by returning to the empty house of his childhood bringing a guilty recognition that “the trick is to see the view as it is, not as you’d want it to be.”

In reality, there is no enchanted forest, only the moving river.

By contrast, This is Not Schiehallion by Ellie Stewart is a quirkily attractive five-minute piece, in which Blythe Jandoo and Richard Colvin are a couple who, in their separate rooms, banter over their virtual step-aerobic climb of Perthshire’s well-known mountain.

Stopping off for a swig of prosecco makes the task a little easier.

Linda McLean’s even shorter prose poem, Miss Georgina Ballantine, has Rachel McAllister offering a celebration of the legendary 1920s angler who is said to have landed a giant 64lb salmon — a generous gift from the Tay, the country’s longest and arguably loveliest river.

View online at pitlochryfestivaltheatre.com/whats-on-digital/shades-of-tay.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
HAMLET
Theatre review / 16 June 2025
16 June 2025

GORDON PARSONS joins a standing ovation for a brilliant production that fuses Shakespeare’s tragedy with Radiohead's music

londres
Books / 12 June 2025
12 June 2025

GORDON PARSONS recommends a gripping account of flawed justice in the case of Pinochet and the Nazi fugitive Walther Rauff

wasteland
Books / 16 May 2025
16 May 2025

GORDON PARSONS steps warily through the pessimistic world view of an influential US conservative

nazi nightmares
Books / 2 May 2025
2 May 2025

GORDON PARSONS is fascinated by a unique dream journal collected by a Jewish journalist in Nazi Berlin

Similar stories
The crowd at Manchester Punk Festival 2024
Culture / 11 April 2025
11 April 2025
Ben Cowles speaks with IAN ‘TREE’ ROBINSON and ANDY DAVIES, two of the string pullers behind the Manchester Punk Festival, ahead of its 10th year show later this month
Aboubakar Traore
Global Routes / 2 December 2024
2 December 2024
Two new releases from Burkina Faso and Niger, one from French-based Afro Latin The Bongo Hop, and rare Mexican bootlegs
A panel from the Palestinian History Tapestry
Exhibition Review / 1 October 2024
1 October 2024
MARJORIE MAYO recommends an exhibition that asserts Palestinian history, culture and creativity in the face of strategies to erase them
(L) Dancebase artistic director Tony Mills; (R) Miller de No
Follow the movement with Matthew Hawkins / 31 July 2024
31 July 2024
TONY MILLS, artistic director of Dancebase, reveals how he assembles a festival programme in the teeth of tough economic realities