Being from the Highlands I struggled to see much theatre when I was growing up and as I got older, it became even harder. Less and less touring companies would come North and when they did, it was very rare that they would be doing something about the Highlands. Local authorities may be satisfied with theatre coming to the Highlands in drips and drabs but in my view that makes us, as a people, passive – only the receivers of art. My ambition is to help nurture and create theatre which is from the Highlands, about the Highlands and created by the people who live there.

Theatre needs to be culturally and socially rooted in the place where it’s grown

It’s hard to be involved in theatre when the main focus is in the ‘centre’ and even harder to get down there and see any. But then why should people from more remote areas struggle to access theatre? Why can’t there be a company which can help them grow as artists and people? Theatre, I think, needs to be culturally and socially rooted in the place where it’s grown – entwined in its politics and voice. Each of these scenes approach issues of the land, the mythology born there, the poetry it is spoken in and the questions of our future.

Driftwood is a collection of three scenes by professional playwrights Kenny Lindsay (Oban), Jacqueline Clarke (Shetland) and George Gunn (Caithness).

The Wrapping in the Hide by Kenny Lindsay looks at what happens when a community whose roots are Gaelic, are drowned by incomers. Mac returns home to a small island on the West of Scotland after The Great War. He is greeted by Cara, an old woman who explains that he has actually been away for 100 years, and that she is his sweetheart he left behind. The only way to make her young again is to kiss her but worries it may have the opposite effect.

Aethin by Jacqueline Clarke considers what the Earth and the Sea would say about the people who live and grow old on them if we could hear them. Pain, death and sorrow are inflicted on them by man-made ‘environmentally friendly’ machines, making their poetry tainted with blood. If we could hear the stories they tell – would we reconsider the damage we are doing to them?

The New Purgatory by George Gunn is set on present day Stroma, an island off the North Coast. The island was once the site of a prison where Car’s father had been held for his crime of exposing the truth about the nuclear dumping on the coast of Somalia. Mac has returned to the deserted island to find out why his Mother brutally murdered his Father before he was born. Both are stuck in purgatory as they wait for the boat to take them back to the mainland.

I am proud to present ‘Driftwood’ at the Roxy Art House, the beginning of a piece which I hope will grow into something bigger and more beautiful.

Other students from QMU will also be using this space from 25-27 March to showcase their talents, all are welcome to pop down.