"You have a lot to share with people. If only you'd share it."
After the first Gulf War, Dan needed a rest and some peace and quiet. But 14 years on from the end of that war and he's still living in self-imposed exile in a mainland hospital, away from the Isle of Lewis where he was born and raised.
After an age of isolation, Dan's peace and quiet is interrupted by two visitors - Lube, a fellow patient intent on escape, the other, Anne Williams, a visiting map-maker assigned the difficult task of updating the Ordnance Survey charts of Lewis.
Frustrated that she's been left with "the bloody French Foreign Legion of cartography", Anne gradually becomes convinced that Dan's obsession - making artwork that maps the myths and memories of his native island in bizarre, intimate detail - is a treasure-trove for the public good.
Written by Lewis writer Iain F MacLeod, I was a Beautiful Day is a deeply moving, often hilarious tale of resilience, survival and cartography. Displaying Iain's signature love of language and a style characterised by a wild streak of surrealism, it was commissioned by the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, to open the new An Lanntair arts centre in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, before embarking on a tour throughout Scotland.
