Writer: George Grant
Director: George Grant
Following the death of his best friend Danny, Michael, a journalist becomes obsessed with a story about Arthur Johnson, a much travelled and well educated climber and academic, and Andrew MacLeod, a Croft owner from Mull who used to accompany him on climbs in the Islands. The unlikely friendship between the two men leads Michael to believe that they may have been in a homosexual relationship and he is determined to find out the truth, even as his manager at the newspaper, played by Claire Harbin, advises caution and questions his motives.
At one level this play, by writer, director and actor George Grant, could be a timely critique on the rights of journalists to intrude into the private lives of academics, but this topic plays a minor role here as the deeper reason for Michael’s interest in finding out the truth, and how it could relate to his own life and the death of his friend, emerges.
Unfortunately the answer to how it connects to his own friendship is glaringly obvious even before he gets close to establishing the nature of the relationship between Johnson and MacLeod. As an investigative journalist, Michael is the only person who fails to see what it clearly in front of him as he goes down a rabbit hole in his search for truth about someone else.
Where the play does succeed is in its use of recorded clips that are turned into zoom calls between Michael and a variety of people who were known to Johnson and MacLeod. Each of the people he interviews, played by James Ross Turner, Illona Linthwaite, and Graham Kellas, have their own particular hang-ups and obsessions that turn them into believable characters and add some much needed humour and balance to a script that otherwise threatens to get weighed down by its own intensity and single minded focus. The scenes show Grant’s skills and potential as a writer in particular but in drawing the story too narrowly and making the conclusion too obvious, he has limited the opportunity to really show what he may be able to do.
Runs until 29 August 2026 (not 23rd) | Image: Contributed
