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Charles Trevelyn, Dundee, Dundee Play, Frankenstein, John Quinn, Joseph Lee, Jute, Mary Brooksbank, Mary Slessor, O halflins an hecklers an weavers an weemin, Play, Shoestring Theatre, William McGonagall, William Wallace, Winston Churchill, writing
Ken : – In 1942 Annie’s grandson is in the North African desert. Near a place called El Alamein. He’s never been abroad before… (Exit put on Churchill hat.)
Em : – … unless you count a summer holiday to the seaside…at Broughty Ferry! Now in the North African Desert Boab’s future career plans don’t involve jute. ( Three WW2 soldiers kick ball.)
Boab : – What a goal! When the war’s ower I’m gonna be a professional – I’m no goin back to work in a mull an deh afore meh time like meh granny.
Tam : – Deh afore yir time? Yir in a war!
Boab : – Hope an faith! Besides jute’s on the wey oot.
(Kick the ball again. Enter Officer.)
Officer : – (Bellowing) Get that ball away and get fell in. On parade now!
Boab : What’s this aboot, Sir?
Officer : Yours not to reason why soldier!
( Churchill enters.)
Officer : – The men are ready for your inspection now Prime Minister (Churchill stops to speak to Dan )
Churchill : – Where are you from soldier?
Dan : – Dundee! (Churchill shudders and turns to Tam)
Churchill : – Where are you from soldier?
Tam: – Dundee!
(Dan walks round Tam so he is next in line.)
Churchill : – Where are you from soldier?
Dan : – (Cheeky.) Dundee.
(Tam walks round Dan.)
Churchill : – (Horrified) Where are you from soldier?
Tam – Dundee…..
Churchill : – (To Boab.) Where are you from soldier?
Boab : – Dundee. Got flung oot o’ the mulls– but you got flung oot o’ the toon!
(Exit horrified Churchill.)
Officer : – It’s the guardroom for you soldier! OOT. (Exit. Dragging.)
Em : – Bob, from a heckling tradition was sentenced to fourteen days in a military jail for insulting the Great War Lord and the leader of the Nation. Bob never became a professional footballer but…he had a story to tell his grandchildren. (End of scene. Song. ‘If Dundee Was Africa’)
Playing Space
Shey’s guidebook and bag
The Indian servants get ready to deal with the jute wallah. Today Shey’s the only one here handing all the props to herself.
Our stage and property manager takes a permanent break from acting by joining the management instead.
The back o’ Shey’s book
The official tour guide takes charge
Our sound guy from last year smiles with relief that this year he’s got a gig elsewhere
As we set up for the Indian rammy, it looks friendly
Get up the road ye young ****** ……
An American visitor is selfie daft where the official guide, Ken the Irish famine contingent and the Dundee jute workers are concerned.
Shey struts it as a singing suffragette, belting out Vote, Vote, Vote for Neddy Scrymgeour. Broad Dundee words BUT with a post accent….
one of the new crop of placards after a few of last year’s bloopers….
shehanne moore 
WOW. What fantastic stories he’s keeping alive! Thanks to you (and the little guys) for sharing them!
I think the desert one is brill. Glad he got it Anne x
Agreed!
xxxxxx
This sounds like a marvelous play. I have included some references to Churchill in my new book but no-one from Dundee. Keep up the good work Shey and Dudes.
Dearest Robbi
We do our best but Shey makes it very difficult.
Love
The poor little dudes x
I forgot the bit about how Dundee, then the drunkest city in the British empire elected a prohibitionist instead….
I know it’s a sideways comment but I was looking for a word and you just found it for me ‘unhinged’ – perfect. I enjoyed your post, Shey.
If you found that word then my work is done Lord Zoo xxxxxx
Thanks – ‘unhinged’ done, dusted and posted
I know x
This is so entertaining!
xxxx
Fabulous post. You and the dudes are doing a great job there, keeping the flame alive!
Cat, they are more flame throwers than anything xxxxx
One day I’d like to be in the audience for one of your husband’s plays. Must stop spending my money on food and socks.
Leslie…then we might have to stick to the script. xxx
Heavens no! I want the whole shebang! Shenanigans and all!
last year our motto was ‘Every Night a DIfferent Show…’ (That is why we now have that board going’ Not the *’*** Highland scene at the start of the second last scene in Act 1 where my Mr says to me… Where are we now.. Cos every night he messed the whole play up here…. The best night being , not the first one where he whispered to me 3 times what scene is it? And I said and then I really did say… But the second where he cut right to it as , my older girl, who was standing in that night, was waiting to come on as Mary Queen of Scot’s Ghost and the the guy playing the Jute Baron was standing ready at the other side and their faces were nothing to the poor guy who had just done the McGonagall rap and was struggling to buckle on a plaid’s. You know I had to tell him to shut up , we were not there yet… and you know I got the whole scene hauled back. Yeah. everyone sighed with relief. Mr. did the right line but then he went, ‘BUT..and went into the highland scene.’
Anyway you flip the board over and it goes, ‘Dear Ken, THIS is the *’*** Highland Scene.
Wonderful stories, Shey! You and Mr Shey have such a wealth of local knowledge, you are indeed the keepers of the Dundee flame. I cannot wait to hear what version of the play is enacted THIS time. It will be sublime, whichever.
Lol.. well Kate, we hope it will be the one the Mr Wrote but hey…. while there is a script, we have no idea.
Ps.. are you no jet lagged ??xxxxx
No, I’m fine, thanks. Though coming down from running on adrenaline for two weeks! A wonderful unforgettable time. Like you and your cast of Dundonians – giving it all you’ve got. So thrilled the Masterpiece is about to ride again.
It looked whirlwind wonderful Kate. Hard to come down from that. (Just lobby S&S to get you on another jaunt soon!) Aye, we need the adrenaline for this play xxxxx
Excellent Shey. Great scene!!!!
That is so wise: as Writers it is our duty to be the flame keepers who keep the stories alive- we are the storytellers they used gather around the camp fire to hear. As George Santayana said: those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. If we want a better future we have to remind people of the realities of what our parents grandparents and their parents fought to change… and what we take so lightly for granted. And make the point with humour so we don’t turn people off!
Good luck with the play though you don’t need luck… it will be brill! PXXXX
Ooh..like that image of being round the campfire, telling the stories we keep close to our hearts. And it is true re those who forget the past. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
XXXXXXX back at yer!
Aw xxxxxxx
Shey, a wonderful enthralling post! I was thinking of you the other day and wondering about your play .. and here is all about it! I don’t know how you do it – mix the touching personal (especially about being stopped from fighting in Spain), to the local history in Dundee, to national events … all interspersed with the Dudes! Fascinating – a joy to read and learn about the play and the stories behind it. Yes, we are all Flame Keepers and must help to keep those stories alive, passing them on to the next generation and beyond. Your post struck a chord with me and will stay with me. hugs xxx
It’s my Mr’s play. I just direct it. And I am so glad he included the scene about my dad cos my dad had a terrible upbringing, And I am totally impressed by the way the Mr. has woven it all together..even William Wallace through weaving in the city. It’s quite a run through and very hard work with us all out there non stop, start to finish but I guess we are not just flame keepers of stories but how we re-enact them x
wow, I had never heard that about Churchill before and that is the whole point of keeping the stories alive, you are correct pass em’ on and make sure a new generation learns of their own history. wow, loved this post, Shey. And now, the usual dances with the Cossacks and drinks the vodka, singing The Red Flag. xxx
Let us sing that song indeed xxx The best re Dundee is the Churchill bit is even long forgotten here but you rake in archives you get and then? Then you get again. the titbits I’d say. After THE WAR, Churchill was offered the freedom of Dundee and declined…
Ps tell u something now re that song the Red Flag.. my dad..an ashamed Socialist, ex senior magistrate of the good city of Dundee, bomb disposal hero and expert in the Korean War, asked for it to be sung at his funeral, because of the people, and the Dundee Crematorium withdrew their organist at the last despite having just cremated the man who shot the children at Dunblane. So I thought that day ‘ Well I will just have to play it and all the songs on the hymn sheet, despite the fact I have had to learn them all at short notice and actually I don’t know if I can ‘ but at the last moment…here’s another story.. one of the town’s leading organists…quite a kind of snottery guy really… stepped forward to play everything and said it would be be his pleasure. There you go. Another story. I nearly died xxx
Thank goodness for that man. What an insult withdrawing their own organist. My Dad was a labour, socialist as well. And I can not be anything else. xxx
Ih indeed I did thank goodness for that man. It never ceases to amaze me how you get these situations. I mean we were hardly going to man the barricades and instigate revolution. In fact if they’d known the damned words…well, they’d have seen how utterably ridic they were being. it is really amazing how people often fear what they don’t know jack shit about. A few years back I had a very interesting conversation with a DJ I had hired for a party and given the requested play list to. Anyway he told me he very nearly was not going to play Fields of Athen Rye cos his understanding was this was an IRA rebel song and he was worried that there might be complaints etc and what kind of folks were going to be at this party –as it turned out folks who got steaming drunk and lay on tables….folks who were there with partners who were NOT their hubbys…..Anyway, he went and looked it up and
saw what it was about and now thought it was a lovely song. As I said to him, I chose it cos both my hubby and I have Irish famine survivors in our family tree. End of. But really…
I can’t find how to a same thank you to you. But have my xxxxxxxxxxxx
hugs xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Theater is a terrific form of oral history, and ya’ll look like you’re having a blast. I would love to have seen that suffragette parachute from the roof. And love the William Wallace quote. Great job, Dudes! even if it wasn’t your cup of tea. Shey, you have some wonderful memories here… ❤️
Oral hist is good. Not to be lost. Aye the suffragettes of course did not Churchill either. And I quote from the play cos it is actually one of my lines, where I playa suffragette, ‘Some new from the house of commons where the MP for Dundee has just voted against a bill to introduce women’s suffrage, for the 14th time.’ Alas I don’t get to parachute from the rafters. That is prob as well but I do have a rousing chorus of Vote Vote vote for Neddy Sycrmageor, delivered in my poshest voice but with all the words as Dundee words…. I also play William Wallace. That scene is total slapstick. I love doing it. I love doing both these scenes, so much that while Em was never meant to play them, when we got extra folks on board meaning I could get rid of a lot of these vignette parts, I kept these two!
Two primo roles in my opinion. How I’d love to have been there! Did you folks take video? Perhaps uploading to YouTube? 🙂 ❤️
We didn’t have time tos et up a lie stream last year . Don’t know about this year. The prob is I am an avid photographer and recorder BUT I am on stage one way or another for the entire first act and at least 75 percent of the second. At rehearsals I do try to bag some shots but obvi I am also directing. However I did get given some footage last year from folks who saw it that is on you tube. There’s the Wallace and Selby encounter although we are now beefing this up along the lines that Wallace does Not expect Selby to repeat it and would rather bolt… I’ve also restaged the bit behind it, with an audience searching guard and a weaving woman who makes this very definite wooh hoo noise as she rattles her hands up and down the whole time., I’ve better paced a lot of stuff I think. last time we put this together in like 3 weeks with a full cast . I was directing things when I hadn’t read the next scene !
We also had a choir last time who were great but actually it’s probably a far tighter show without them and also gives us the chance to take it other places which we have been asked to do, Plus I now have a few bits of action continuing into and round that back space while a scene is going on. Again I didn’t get much of the choir but the sound guy got me this, when I asked him–cos Mr wrote the words here and I wrote the music. Even in this bit we were all standing round Mary Slessor.
Reblogged this on Smorgasbord – Variety is the spice of life and commented:
Shey’s Mister has a play in rehearsal… and Shey reminds us all that as writers we are storytellers, and that those who can no longer tell their own deserve a voice. As always the Dudes give voice and their own perspective on events and the post is both informative on the historical elements of the great city of Dundee.. and entertaining too.
Sally thank YOU so much. Just come in and seen this xxxxxxxxxxxx Yir an angel
Pleasure and hugs to the fur wonders… ♥xxxxx
Dearest Sally,
We are glad You see our worth…. Unlike Shey
Love
the Poor dudes.
Pingback: Of Flame Keepers and Writers – The Militant Negro™
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Reblogged this on Die Erste Eslarner Zeitung – Aus und über Eslarn, sowie die bayerisch-tschechische Region!.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Michael x
Love it! Thank you Shehanne! Is one of the dudes probing to become a “Highlander”? 😉 Michael
Lol, I do hav a wee highland dude called Hootsmon who has a sidekick Dougall, he just doesn’t come on very often. They might seriously make a better fist of that scene, which along with the one before, the Mr and I adlibbed our ways through, differently, every night causing nervous breakdowns galore. I thought that this year I would add a few boards for his benefit at this stage…. Hopefully reducing the stress…… But then again…..
Shehanne you are famous, amazing, … wonderful! Great presentation! Michael
AW and YOU are way too kind Michael xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
:-))
Way past just precious, Shehanne. Must get this out to The Nieces-2=Pieces (one an Anglophile bulldozing her way to PhD medievalist and worse English Degree just back from gig-teaching at Manchester U – and she no fan of football: ours our yours!
– the other a PhD Jacobs School of Music (opera) soprano soiling her tiara in San Francisco conducting chorale works for her lucre and her parents’ “joy.” If they do not fall in love with this – you – I shall bash them both with more 1950s elementary school receipts for wantoned mayhem and a decade later the real lyrics to “Wild Thing.”
Ooh Wild Thing, I love that song. I am no fan of football either although last year when we first ran this play, I pulled a football song from nowhere, I threw a wig to my Mr. too, when he forgot his words in the scene that is about Dundee’s two football clubs. The expressions of the guys doing the sound was something else… They were also doing the prompting but they figured we didn’t need it as we just made it up. That’s impressive credentials for both your nieces. Conducting? Now, I would love a link if there’s any on YOu Tube.
I shall ask Kaia En-Tzu Richards if she has posted. Her Doctorship and I used to tour such musicals as the Rick Morianis(sp?) Little Shop of Horrors, Rumplestiltskin, etc. – And I hate musicals, mostly – but she repaid my love and learned infantile junior high hand-slap boy-games. I taught her cousin Emerson Storm Fillman Richards the slap-games and the revised works to Wild Thing…you make my thing swing, which she promptly recited to her high school freshman English teacher, who promptly dusted the floor by the “rolling-while-laughing” method. I am a bit too luddite for YouTube – though I understand its commercial and phenomenological appeal to anyone who coigns for a living. Kaia: I’ll have to ask about conducting, too. U tikd b
You make my ..thing..swing.. Yeah, why not? They probably were the right words but had to be changed. you tube? Well, I have some stuff there but these were lessons hard learned.
Reblogged this on richwrapper and commented:
If you haven’t already: pull up a chaise lounge – the meal you are about to be fed will require such – and read, see, watch, Shehanne Moore’s delightful piece. This must be sent straitway to my Nieces-2-Pieces vie Snagglepus Mail and much enjoys all around!
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! Yir a gem you know xxxxxxxxxx
Have you ever got all tangle-typed-fingerish and ended a comment with “U tikd b”? before. Well, to quote a quite lame but funny radio comick on “Live From Here” which replaced legendary Garrison Keillor who had a bad case of both-feet-in-mouth disease which rendered him politically incorrect in his own clan no less? What I meant to type was more like “I shall see if Kaia is a “Tuber” and if so has she any vid to share with a fellow Scot…if but a diminutively blooded one. She once ‘plainted to me: I wish I were White American like you and dad.” First time ever I hit a relative with a cheek-slap, glare and lecture. She blurted, “why?…”Because, honey, anyone who can speak ‘ValleyGirl English like you” already is as much American as I can stand. Don’t you ever disrespect yourself like that to me again unless you warn me first. Now I am going to have to go punish this hand for so striking a young lady I love very much who understands so little…There is only One Race on this planet, dear lady, and, provably It is a Very Slow Race Indeed. So slow it has convinced itself ethnicity and geography and climatology and limited procreative choices can make races. Absolutely not: besides, all that was before they had starters’ guns to begin races!” She giggled and I chagrined. The other niece, Emmie, or Em, or Pica to me – she has yet to ask what a pica is – is thief-thick with her cuz, is in love with all things British Isles – and beyond. And soon she heads back immerse in libraries closed to mere mortals. I shall ask her about YouTube. I figure anyone who can play with scissors and glue and let whack rule to multiply points deserves as much noteriety as possible. In fact, I shall tour the local library database as soon as I finish pounding nails in my blogs and visiting the ‘hood to see if we have any of your potboilers to hand and if so Whoppie and if not craft a beg-and-plead routine. My membership here stretches back to 1954 and I even got to read Small Town South there in the early 1969s, a scandal novel-as-fact (or, verse-vica) by one Sam Byrd who was “run out of town” for prying the lid of Sanford, Florida and showing its post Great Depression local readers an unblemished mirror. He hater became a Broadway writer/director, etc., after earning gobs of medals as a US Navy Beachmasteer at The Normandy Invasion in June of 1944. He retired to…wait for it…Sanford, North Carolina, after leaving Bright Lights Big City.
Ah–ah.. more than one Sandfor–obvi.Only passed through the Florida one though. Now I have given you a ton of questions to ask re You Tube which of course, you will look what we call awfie knowledgeable aboot. Now seriously, I see Amazon say they are going to these rare books. And having looked at the preview rare is what it reads as. Scots’ rare, meaning fine. So I am going to find myself a copy of that. I am sure you must have been all of a month old when you joined the library if that. I dunno if the library has my potboilers but if not, believe me, I wills end you one, hell..a reader!! Like one of my heroine’s who is a writer..well sort if.. I look after my readers. xxxxxxxxxxxx
“The importance of gathering stories…. And how stories can be re-used” … I love it.
I remember I had a teacher back in High School who once asked us to pick up a newspaper article and to write something based on the characters…
If you managed to focus well, you couold certainly write a good story. I think we can pick up some great ideas out there, wheter using a specific story or just paying attention to certain scenes or events in a particular story.
Very interesting to learn a bit about William Bury, BTW… Great post dear She… Sending love & best wishes ❤ 🙂
My Angel, thank you. I am a great squirreler of stories AND places. The latter always turns up one way or another in my books. BUT I have sure used stories too. I based Brittany’s present day situ in The Writer and Rake on a situation my older girl was in for seven long years but had Brittany doing what she never would. I really love the way that the Mr. has woven all these stories into a play, the common thread being jute , or early on weaving. But he’s set it against huge events. Every story has happened in some way. But as with the Spanish one, what we do at the back of that scene is talk about the memorial in Dundee to the small group of men who did go and were killed. And there was recruitment here for a lot of causes because there was never any work for the men. This was She-Town. We have a song for the men who were killed- a duet, we wrote specially, sung by our two singers, we have cast members asking the audience to help them hold up the names.
William Bury was indeed interesting. he came up from Whitechapel London at the height of the Ripper killings there, with his wife, a former prostitute. And within no time she was dead and in a box. He kept her there for a while and indeed invite folks to their flat, where they drank and played cards on that box. Eventually he handed himself in, quite confident, having watched court proceedings that he was dealing with yokels. he also wrote on the walls of the tenement etc that he was Jack. Bury fits the profile, ticked a lot of other boxes and inspectors did come up from Scotland Yard but obvi Jack is one of these enduring mysteries.
Wow, fab post! Great food for thought here too for writers, thanks Shey and the dudes! Oh, and loved you as a suffragette! You weapon! 🙂 xxxxxxxxxxx
You know Debs, I do love that scene. last year I gave all my ‘vingnettes’ away to my older girl. She had agreed to step into the Sat night where we were two cast members short but then the night before the show she said how she wished she’d just signed for the three nights. So I gave her all my vignettes to do , to take pressure off –also the parts of Em and ken were never written so the actors were doing a dozen other things– but I was not giving her that one or the Wallace one!!! Having a laugh at taking the pressure off, cos now it’s all back on again as I have a lot of silent biz, I now need to remember… TYPICAL!!!
You are too much, lol. I don’t know how you do it all! You’re a star my friend. Now, back to the
‘silent biz’! 🙂 xxxx
oh yes….. back indeed !!!! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Ps and you are too kind.)
Oh, Shey, you all do have so much fun! oxo
Lol, we do actually. It’s the nicest cast I’ve worked with as opposed to ones where by the end of it, there’s queues to kill someone. Also they keep coming up with wee ideas. Like last night our usual sound guy who is on something else and can’t do it, came to collect his wife, and walked in at the mill scene where there’s all this coughing and he said, ‘ Cue coughing and spluttering.’ SO I thought…right. Let’s get an idiot board on that. And a clapperboard which I have, right at the start. So all this is great.
xxxx
Wow, what a wonderful way to keep your creativity flowing and to just stay in love with life! Your my hero!😍😘❤️
I am not anything, my darling, just a believer in the fact that if we can do in life, we should do, WHATEVER that is. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Oh how I would love to see the play, but even more to participate in it and be part of the fun! I’ve written and produced these kinds of funky whimsical hilarious shows in my time, both live on stage and on TV. Just this Sunday, we were reminiscing with a friend about getting arrested together after a performance. Isn’t it terrific to be able to say – and sing! – anything that’s on your brilliant creative mind!
Love it!!!!! Do tell more re the arrest Dolly, I am dying to know! I mean the best I can do to match it ..well okay..being banned from a hotel…indeed being flung bag, baggage and with 80 costumes out of a hotel along with an entire theatre company after some serious partying… AND also in another incident hailing up in a police station after a key broke alas onstage, leaving two cast members handcuffed together….the real problem being that the key that broke and the handcuffs belonged to a senior high ranking police inspector who kindly helped us out with a loan of them on the understanding that no-one could know. But what could we do when the only spare key was in that police station… Well, that did take some explaining when. Ah the lives we quietly have led, eh Dolly? In many ways this show is quite tame for me!!!!
I could just imagine the “serious partying”! Been there, done that…
As to the arrest, that was #4, and as far as arrests go, not very serious, more like “You naughty boys and girls, do you think we are all idiots here? Like we don’t understand at whom you are poking fun – how dare you?” To which the answer was, of course, “At the Emperor Franz Joseph, and what did YOU think?” At which point everybody, including Little Mozart, were let go, and I was detained for a bit of further questioning, since I’ve already had a record of “anti-Soviet propaganda,” and then also released. Soon after that I was arrested for the last time, and that one was already serious.
“Little Mozart” was the title of the show (way before “Amadeus”), and I produced it with conservatory students, which allowed interesting possibilities, such as a chamber orchestra on stage and all kinds of musical jokes poking fun at – you guessed it! – the communist regime and Brezhnev in particular. My friend who was at my holiday table had played Mozart. I have never led a quiet life, dear Shey!
And how glad I am to hear it Dolly. Quiet lives are boring. We should stand on this star to be boring! And I see you have done well to keep the flame burning. Little Mozart sounds fascinating. I do love the reply. Lol!! Keep the faith Dolly. Keep the faith xxxxx
Dear Shey,
There’s more than one story in here.. I’d say two, but adding the hamsters …. let’s say four!
Fun post! TY, so much!
Oh there’s more stories! We basically run through Dundee’s history in the weaving trade, starting in Roman times, including William Wallace’s tale of being hidden by a weaving woman after killing the Dundee governors son. A few pit stops before jute came to the city but jjute is really the focus, these stories are the sort of weaving and textile being here in the city before jute came, bit. It’s a Dundee and the world story, we all act out. xx
Stories we make people themselves!!! TIME 7000 Years!!! Great very good post!! Greet!!
We are indeed the writers of our own stories. I’m thrilled you enjoyed this. Truly. iI’s made my day xxxx
Oh, what a post! Every time you share your theater, I want to hunt down a community group and audition. I took my mom to see Arsenic and Old Lace in a church-turned theater for a belated Mother’s Day present–it only seats 75 people, this little church, with the basement curtained off to serve as a green room/ prop space. But the stage looked smashing, and no actor required some headset microphone to be heard. 🙂
And I love your inspiration about inspiration. The stories of the past can ignite so many imaginations. 🙂
Ah, Arsenic and Old Lace. I once played Elaine in that. Now that production showed all the rooms including the basement with Teddy digging merrily away. I think stories are well worth squirreling away. It’s good to be able to keep them alive nxxxxx
Is it a theatrical historical-play written by Mr … and directed by you?
A bit confused,please tell me in a few words to really understand what’s on.How interesting that you,Mr … & your Dudes teach us history as well,I didn’t know that Churchill was Dundee MP for many years … xxxxxxx
It is indeed written by Mr and I do direct–lol someone has to! We did it last year at this time at very short notice, 3 weeks after the theatre company pulled out, or rather the person running it who seemed to think she was directing a Hollywood movie pulled them out–after various run ins led to a stand off. The best bit about all this is the Mr and I live quietly…yes seriously!!!…so she had no idea that many years ago we ran a theatre co… So the surprise was hers when she never won that stoned off cos the bottom line was that I thought I could still direct despite not having done it for over twenty years. Oh…and act too. Our only prob was getting a cast together and doing it in 3 weeks But we did. Anyway, this is a rerun and this time we have had a lot of time. It’s a play about the textile history of Dundee which in its day was called Juteopolis, and was also a very radical town to boot. It’s all the hidden things and people folks didn’t know were associated with it. Like Churchill who was basically booted out the town after being me by a set of ‘ Fenian lions with Communist teeth,’ apparently so we- enact the scene where he was served the maggot in his kipper and the bit in the desert and why it was he was not popular, amongst a ton of other things ,. Lol…that is more than a few words. xxxx
Thank you so much for all the captivating illustrations,darling Shey!It’s all clear to me now,plus I enriched my history knowledge and learnt a few things about Mr and you and your hidden talents.That’s why you so wonderfully set up all the Dude scenes and clever dialogues xxxx
Lol… I also worked in girls’ comics Doda!! Yep. For Dundee’s DC Thomson’s. The Bunty. You had to write entirely in strips and think in picture frames, which is very different from writing prose and also, it had to be tight in terms of story telling, cos you were only allowed so many strips per instalment. So I guess I like to keep my hand in with the dudes. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Oh my so much wow 😮 here!
🔥the flames 🔥 alive with stories
And paths intersecting all at this grit-bearing place called Dundee, where Shey and the Mr. have personal history, too. Shey you’ve got some incredible energy! And lots of flame 🔥 for keeping stories warm and going on, well-tended. I think in a comment I saw in a video your (Mr.?) one character (played by you) take a man down with a sign?
No choir this year? Well, I’m sure you made some really fun decisions this year, and no doubt the play will be marvelous and every night different and worth savoring… I love how your life played encore on you directing and acting after a hiatus… [used to run a theater co. ?] your creative (both yous and all) energy and passion for play is very inspiring…
We might see a play tonight or soon have to see how things go… gotta love the theatre 🎭
Ah Ka, I am indeed a person of secrets… I do love the theatre and I love doing something with nothing which is what we do here really. And yes we all need energy for this show. It is a killer. Everyone is out there the whole time no exist or entrances as such. The audience get to see all that goes on behind the scenes too. And yes that scene is the WIlliam Wallace story re-enactment, where he kills the governor’s son. Originally it was going to be played properly you know but not when I saw that floor. No . No. I then thought, let’s do it with idiot boards. So it’s slapstick so is the bit after where the weaving woman hides him. The choir weren’t available this year but in some ways while they were brilliant, we now have a touring productionplus some of the cast cans sing and do so at certain points, and already we have been asked to come to a festival next year, x
❤
Lol those guidebooks, the covers are hilarious. And what a fascinating family history regarding WWII. I’m so jealous that you get to put on a play… I haven’t done that since high school. 🙂 xxxxo
Well that is the way Dundee folks speak on these guide book. Lol. My name is Emma in the play. Em for short middle name Fay, last name Dundee. The punchline then being Em Fae Dundee… Get it… Or I am from Dundee. We er have our own little language here that non natives struggle with. We also have our own way of dropping consonants and blurring vowels and speaking really fast. (They think cos of the noise in the mills and having to shout to be heard.) Ah WW 2 yes…. We have put on a lot of plays in our time my darling. Just not in recent years but there last year when there was all the trouble with the theatre group hired to do this play, well…
So proud of you all! Especially Mr Shey – what a talent! And so many Quinns in the cast. I so wish I could be there to see you all. A wonderful legacy for the people of Dundee, and of course for the Wee Riot. xxx
Aw hugs Noelle. Wish you could be there too. Sure the Wee Riot would love to meet you too xxxxx
Wow, the Dudes have found their true calling promoting the spoken history. Great collection of historical facts, well done to all the flame keepers, and best of luck with the play!
Glad to be back xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Lovely to have you back inese. Missed you xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
glad critters are keeping
past alive & not
nibbling on it
much 🙂
I guess bits might be hard for them to digest, especially as no hamsters…x
Oh, Shey!! I love your Suffragette attire! You are one “bad a** of a wildling!!” xo 💐
I am so excited you got many more photos than last year!
The description of the revolving characters was somehow quite clear here! I know those full on accents of the quaint hamstahs’ are now becoming much more understandable, my dear!
I love how the Mr. Writer was able to weave Dundee’s history and really made the stories come alive.
I now think about the wars in a different light. Time has changed me more and more over time. I didn’t like Viet Nam at all and now, realize some fights are needed to save us from Dictators and Murderers. WWII was certainly worthy of participation but when I see Dunkirk and other films about Normandy, I wouldn’t have wanted my son to go to war, but am proud of my grandfather and cousins who had mind altering (PTSD episodes and seizures for my grandfather and one of my twin cousins…)
I have mentioned this on my blog before but You are extraordinary! I’m proud of your playbook and for the way the production was carried out, too.
Hip hip hooray, Shey! xo 📣 🎉 📜🎇📃 🎆
Hip hip hooray, “Mr. Shey!” 🎉 🔔 📣 📖 🎆
I think it depends why wars were fought as you say. I personally believe WW1 was a bloody empire building land grab of the worst order and had what these men were going through been beamed into our living rooms on a daily basis it would have been ended there and then. And obviously to the victors the spoils and the seeds for an unavoidable WW2 I never met my dad’s father, but I gather he was totally unhinged by four years in the trenches. The irony? he ran away to these trenches at 13. So many were unhinged. And there wasn’t any help for these men. So..yeah… I often think by 27 my grandfather had done it all, fought a war, had several children, lost several and his wife. Re the pics… I never get the chance to get many pics cos I am on for the whole of the first act and 70 percent of the second and at rehearsals I am directing too. BUT I have managed to get some from the actual show when I am just sitting at the side from the second act which I will put up in my next blog. I also have a lot of us beforehand. We don’t have a big cast but we do have a ton of characters so Mr and I have the leads as the tour guides, not cos we wanted but cos at short notice last year we knew we would not get anyone to do them. Also we adlib and make up like you never saw out there. Last night the jaw of our lovely new addition this year, who sings for us, was on the deck when we decided to engage in banter with the audience. I mean real banter , not scripted mild interaction stuff, last night, including many off the cuff jokes. Anyway, we also step in and play some parts. Everyone is doing several parts or vignettes and we don’t have costumes. We have a uniform which is black trousers and tee shirt with either heckler, wummin, weaver, or halflin on it. BUT we do use a ton of hats, shawls, props you name it. It takes me 30 mins each show to lay them all out cos if even one is not where that actor sits we have trouble. In fact there’s so many props that we pack some up at the interval so there’s space to put the ones for act 2 out. We rejigged some parts this year seeing as we had a few minor cast changes and some folks willing to do more BUT I was not for parting with my William Wallace or my suffragette vignettes . I love these scenes.
I don’t ever want you to skip William Wallace or your suffragette scenes. The addition of freestyle banter sounds incredible, Shehanne!
I have always appreciated people who could give a go at “off the cuff” remarks or interplay with audience members. Hurray, for originality!
Thank you for talking about props, since my first theatre experiences were costumes and makeup. Hugs to the “lot” of you who put together such a unique living play from your husband’s book. 🤗 💐
Lol…well I had to go off the cuff after the Mr’s bold attempt to cut Frankenstein and Prince Sergie and Miss Baxter from the performance on Thurs by cutting straight to asset of lines that cue James Bond, lines I took from him cos he never once said them and has always had trouble with this scene. Now fortunately I had already bantered with the audience when some cheering the fact that Lochee got a mention and they were from Lochee and I was away to insult it. Anyway, I did my usual where I cut in and kind of give him a question to remind him, I went ‘ Oih… whit aboot the Steinies..you know?’ but he never got it, he kept going, so I had to cut harder by going to another section of the audience that he never knew his own lines but took everyone else’s and if he’d just shut up a moment he’d know. So we had a ton of banter and then agreed we’d do a take two on this scene. That line biz then became the running gag. So as we gets to another scene he never gets right despite the fact I have idiot boards on now about what scene it is and I’ve just made am off the cuff joke about it too, he’s looking blank so I goes, ‘Cox and the 100 mills. So he starts going, ‘it was 126,’ I’m arguing going’ no in my script,’ when this woman goes,’ ‘Men aye exaggerate.’ and I goes ‘ Especially aboot size.’ The next night, Danile’s plaid feel off as he walked on for the highland scene and he couldn’t stop it cos he is holding placard and carrying a dagger. I had just done this big swivel to him. I just and to turn back and go, ‘ I have aye wanted to see a man withoot a kilt but now I’m no so sure…’ meantime I am raking my brain about the next line –mine–which was’ Some men really suit a kilt.’ Thinking on my feet I added, ‘ That’s when they wear ane. When it’s no lying on the flair…’
having said all that, it’s good to think on your feet. going to get a blog up with some pics tomorrow xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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