Jacobite Country by Henry Adam 2007
"...a nightmare country that combines the rural trauma of an early Sam Shepard play with the grotesquery of a northern Little Britain...a memorable shambles of a show that throbs with life." THE SCOTSMAN
"A Scottish One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest without the sanity." EDINBURGH GUIDE
"A demanding and serious allegory of the current state of the Highland psyche, offering some uncomfortable home truths and calling on some challengingly postmodern disjunctions to do so." THE TIMES
"A Scottish One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest without the sanity." EDINBURGH GUIDE
"A demanding and serious allegory of the current state of the Highland psyche, offering some uncomfortable home truths and calling on some challengingly postmodern disjunctions to do so." THE TIMES
Played on a set which serves as the Highlands' most notorious psychiatric hospital, a Highland crofthouse and a London stand-up comedy club, Jacobite Country is a wild, picaresque dream, a story of wayward, dispossessed men who are played by women, of dislocation and identity.
Selling his soul and his roots, Haggis McSporran has become a King of Comedy in the fleshpots of London under the guidance of drink, drugs and his mentor and guide, Craitur Face. These two anti-heroes meet as inmates in Craig Dunain, the huge Victorian mental hospital which looked down on Inverness for nearly 150 years. Haggis is under the illusion that he is there as an auxiliary nurse, looking after his childhood hero, Mad Uncle Angus, a catatonic bagpipe player who once roamed the hills as an 18th century Jacobite warrior, scaring tourists and dreaming of Scottish independence. He has suffered a life-threatening trauma as an accidental witness to a state crime and has been silent ever since. After being apprehended by the police while dancing on the roof of a moving train under the influence of copious quantities of speed and Tennents lager, Craitur Face takes Haggis and the ward by storm with his perceptive patter and his irresistible charm. The two make their escape to Granny's croft where they replenish themselves with her cannabish? tea and her tales of Al Capone and the illicit whisky trade of the Prohibition before heading for the brght lights of London and Haggis's climb up the ladder of Fame.
Selling his soul and his roots, Haggis McSporran has become a King of Comedy in the fleshpots of London under the guidance of drink, drugs and his mentor and guide, Craitur Face. These two anti-heroes meet as inmates in Craig Dunain, the huge Victorian mental hospital which looked down on Inverness for nearly 150 years. Haggis is under the illusion that he is there as an auxiliary nurse, looking after his childhood hero, Mad Uncle Angus, a catatonic bagpipe player who once roamed the hills as an 18th century Jacobite warrior, scaring tourists and dreaming of Scottish independence. He has suffered a life-threatening trauma as an accidental witness to a state crime and has been silent ever since. After being apprehended by the police while dancing on the roof of a moving train under the influence of copious quantities of speed and Tennents lager, Craitur Face takes Haggis and the ward by storm with his perceptive patter and his irresistible charm. The two make their escape to Granny's croft where they replenish themselves with her cannabish? tea and her tales of Al Capone and the illicit whisky trade of the Prohibition before heading for the brght lights of London and Haggis's climb up the ladder of Fame.
 Craitur Face "All of this nonsense is a welcome thing. Too much of Scottish theatre tends to disappear up its own po-faced fundament. Also innovatory is the casting of women in what is a predominantly masculine play which adds a theatrical alienation to the proceedings which a naturalistic casting could not have achieved...Dogstar Theatre is contimuing to shine a light for Highland theatre across the world and that, in these ever-darkening times, is a deeply welcome and necessary thing." JOHN O'GROAT JOURNAL
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 Haggis, Uncle Angus, Craitur Face & Nurse Eddy  |
  Granny |
SARAH HAWORTH - Haggis McSporran FIONA MORRISON - Craitur Face MAIRI MORRISON - Granny. Nurse Eddy, Vernon ANNIE GRACE - Uncle Angus Written by HENRY ADAM Directed by MATTHEW ZAJAC Designed by ULLA KARLSSON Lighting by JOHN GORDON Live Music Arrangement by ANNIE GRACE Sound by TIMOTHY BRINKHURST Step Dance Instructor HUGH NICOL Production Manager SHOLTO BRUCE Technical Stage Manager JOHN GORDON Assistant Director IAIN MACDONALD Assistant Designer PEGGY JONES Set Construction ANGUS DUNN Producer MATTHEW ZAJAC General Manager CATHERINE MACNEIL Press & Marketing LIZ SMITH Production Photography COLIN CAMPBELL Rehearsal Photography PAUL CAMPBELL Publicity Photography LAURENCE WINRAM Publicity Design EMMA QUINN |
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Craig Dunain Psychiatric Hospital, on the outskirts of Inverness, closed in 1996. At its height, during the 1950s and '60s, it housed up to 1000 patients from all over the Highlands, around 0.5% of the region's total population. Everyone in the Highlands knew someone who was in, or had been in Craig Dunain.
 Dogstar was delighted to work with top Swedish designer Ulla Karlsson. Ulla is the resident designer with Profilteatern, one of Sweden's leading independent companies, based in Umea. Dogstar's collaboration with Ulla is part of its developing working relationship with theatre companies in northern Sweden.
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  JACOBITE COUNTRY previewed at Eden Court Theatre, Inverness amd opened at the Cow Barn (Reid Hall), Udderbelly's Pasture at the 2010 Edinburgh Fringe on 5th August. The production toured throughout Scotland to the following venues:
Eden Court Theatre, Inverness Cow Barn (Reid Hall) Edinburgh Eastgate Theatre, Peebles Lemon Tree, Aberdeen Lyth Arts Centre, Caithness Orkney Arts Theatre, Kirkwall Macphail Centre, Ullapool An Lanntair, Stotnoway Sabhal Mor Ostaig, Skye Tron Theatre, Glasgow Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh Dornie Hall, Lochalsh Druimfin, Tobermory, Mull Sunart Centre, Strontian Craignish Village Hall, Ardfern Rosehall Village Hall Woodend Barn, Banchory Byre Theatre, St. Andrews |
JACOBITE COUNTRY was supported by main funder Creative Scotland, the Hugh Fraser Foundation and the Highland Council's Highland Culture Programme. The last of these funds enabled the company to provide posts for two talented young theatre makers, Iain MacDonald (Assistant Director) and Peggy Jones (Assistant Designer).
