John O' Groat Journal

By Noel Donaldson

Published: 17 December, 2008

I DARE say that most of us who have experienced a caravan holiday will have encountered a hitch or two along the way.

 We turned down the wrong farm road, the van was a four-berth, not the six-berth we had arranged, and getting the pilot light for the gas fire was a little more fiddly that we had expected. To cap it all it rained most of the time.

However, nothing could equal the deluge of misfortune which descended on one group of holidaymakers.

Fortunately, it only happened in the script for

This was far removed from the more usual seasonal production – no dame... no fairy godmother... no villain – and I couldn't have been more delighted about that.

The traditional panto is very much a kids' affair but why shouldn't the adults get a turn now and again.

Oh yes, we should... and I've put my hands over my head to escape the traditional deafening retort.

In culinary terms, this was no turkey and plum pudding, but a huge dripping roast of a play for the thespians, with good meaty parts for the cast and plenty available for second helpings.

The script, a classic Sam Cree composition, had all the rib-tickling ingredients – jokes unlimited, slapstick and restrained sexual innuendo.

Words on pages are only as good as the actors who interpret them and didn't the players do well with their blend of "old hands" and the talents of the younger members? Everyone got in on the act.

From the moment the curtain went up on the opening night at Wick Assembly Rooms on Friday, it was clear that it was going to be a laugh-a-minute affair as the audience followed the story of how a holiday break for a band of women, some of whom are widows, turned into a veritable nightmare.

There were no prizes for guessing who was in charge, as the dialogue opened with the less-than-dulcet tones of widow Ruby Dempsey (Jenny Szyfelbain) who was wrestling in vain to get the door of their luxury caravan open in the absence of a key.

Ruby, daughter Sylvia (Maura Szyfelbain), Lucy McGarry (Margaret Thomson), Rachel Cathcart (Marney Brims) and Vanessa Burton (Rachel Brook), had booked the luxury caravan in order to get away from it all – and men in particular!

Frustrated Ruby, unhappy over having been misled about how long the walk to the caravan was from the bus stop, was not going to let a locked door delay her entrance and solved the problem by applying a well-placed boot.

Once inside, she quickly quells grumbling and bitching in the ranks with a broadside that would make the bravest of husbands quake.

She declares: "When I organise a weekend of peace and quiet, it will be a weekend of peace and quiet, or I will want to know the reason why!

"We are women and we will act as women, the gentler sex."

Which leads on to a scathing denouncement of the male sex as "miserable critturs", "nothing but dirty brutes only interested in one thing", "deceivers" and "the ruination of women".

The women are adamant that they don't need men, and narrate their awful experiences at the hands of the opposite sex after drinking a teacup toast never to become involved with them again.

Ruby had married a drunkard, only interested in betting and boozing, who had given daughter Sylvia a right fright one night by arriving home sober!

But not everyone is totally committed to the celibate pledge.

Lucy tells how she had bumped into an RAF sergeant during a celebratory conga on VE day, and she fondly recalls how they kissed in her mother's lobby into the early hours – his moustache giving her a tickly nose.

A proposal of marriage followed a few days later.

The virginal Lucy had, in the meantime, found out all the information she required about "you know what", from a marriage guidance book.

But she wasn't able to discover just how good, or otherwise, the advice was, as she was jilted at the church.

It turned out that the groom was already married with a wife and three bairns in Manchester.

Surprisingly, Lucy didn't bear a grudge and was resigned about the episode.

She didn't blame the serviceman – the war had been a difficult time.

Ruby's wry observation, one of many cracking one-liners that peppered the production: "Lucy, if some chiel ran over ye wi their car, ye wid make oot he wis tryan til gie ye a lift."

Lucy's only regret was that she was in possession of the knowledge about everything a bride should do on her honeymoon... but had never since been able to put it into practice.

"There's been nobody since then," says a sorrowful Lucy, who remarks longingly: "I would hate to die wondrin'."

Sylvia expresses the hope that some day Lucy's prince will come, drawing the response from the wartime bride: "At this moment I would settle for the bin man."

Rachel curses her "brute of a husband" who made excessive demands on her in the bedroom and reckons she was well rid of him when he walked out on her.

A face at the window causes alarm, but it only heralds the arrival of three anglers and gives the play another dimension, and an opportunity for more mishaps.

Enter, Harry Bradshaw (Drew Macleod), son Alan (Craig Manson) and a rather naive – certainly so far as women are concerned – Ernie Gillespie (Derek Douglas).

Confusion reigns when it is discovered that they had booked the same caravan for the same week.

After much palaver, the two groups eventually decide on a compromise. They will all stay in the caravan.

The audience is well aware that the whole affair is set to turn into something of pantomime.

A curtain is erected to preserve modesty between the two camps as the two groups undress for bed; and there's even more hilarity when Ruby performs a manoeuvre akin to a gymnastic routine as she tries to lift Lucy onto the top bunk.

But, no sooner is Lucy safely ensconced in the bed than she has to come down... to go to the loo.

On the other side of the partition, Harry and his brother-in-law Ernie struggle to find a comfortable sleeping position on an inflatable mattress.

Love, they say, will always find a way, particularly in a confined space such as a caravan, and romance blossoms.

Sylvia takes a real shine to Alan and agrees to go off with him for a spin on his scooter with the promise of a dance in Staxigoe; Rachel's long-lost husband, Wilfred McNeilly (Andrew Craigie), turns up out of the blue after his car breaks down and they get together again; John McGonigle (Harold Reid), the farmer who owns the caravan, is enamoured with Vanessa; and Lucy manages to hypnotise Ernie and tricks him into a marriage proposal.

The couples have better things to do than languish in a caravan and cut short their holiday leaving Ruby and Harry, whose harsh, emotive, views about the opposite sex soon thaw and they warm to each other.

It's not long before there's talk of a wedding.

I suppose the truth of the matter is that men and women just can't do without each other.

The play, which was also staged on Saturday and Monday nights, was a real tonic in the present dreich and recessionary time, and an added plus was that the dialogue was delivered in Caithness dialect, with the exception of the posh Vanessa.

Let's have more of the same next year.

The three-scene play was directed by Clare Sturrock and Drew Macleod.