A stylish, profound and moving play by Hamish MacDonald based on real lives and real events in Scotland and Russia.
Connal MacNab, able seaman and naval boxing champion, comes
home on leave to find Glasgow in the grip of political and industrial strife. Job losses, pay cuts and fear of poverty bring angry protests to the streets, and there are fears the army will be brought in to maintain order. At the centre of this turmoil are Connal's brother Finlay, publisher of a revolutionary newspaper, and his anarchist friend Erica Thule. Connal is sympathetic but knows he has a job for life with the
Navy. But when the government threaten drastic wage
cuts in the armed services, the consequences are dire,
on a personal and a national scale.
British authority is shaken by an uprising within the
Atlantic Fleet at Invergordon. Finlay, Erica and
Connal are thrown into events leading to and beyond the
mutiny as the world changes beyond recognition.
From the volatile streets of Glasgow, to Invergordon, Stalinist USSR
and on to present-day Scotland, through riot, asylum, prison and
gulag, individuals are pitted against questions of service and loyalty to tradition and to emerging revolutionary ideals. Caught in sweeping narrative, this is a play about courage, identity, separation and loss, and shows what can happen when the high hand of authority is ultimately disobeyed.
The playwright Hamish MacDonald has been able to draw on family
history in bringing to life this story of the Invergordon Mutiny.
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