MJ Deans

Righ Lasgair: The Fisher King

28/10/25

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Lexie (Fiona MacNeil) and Effie (MJ Deans) have lived on the Isle of Lewis since childhood. At Lexie’s insistence, they have set off on a fishing trip to the remote Loch that she used to visit with her late father, back when she was wee. Effie has gone along with the idea, but it’s clear from the get-go she’s really not suited to the outdoor life, complaining every step of the way and much more interested in singing and chatting nonsense than pressing on with the hike.

On the long trek to their destination, Lexie spins yarns about some of the mysterious mythological creatures that are connected with this mountainous landscape. Chief among them is the elusive Righ Lasgar: The Fisher King, a creature renowned for luring his victims to their bloody deaths by apparently granting their heart’s desire. Lexie is desperate to catch fish today and, after a distinctly unpromising start, the two women begin to reel them in…

Kenny Boyle’s understated supernatural folk tale would, on the face of it, suggest that it’s an appropriate subject this close to Hallowe’en, but perhaps it’s too understated for its own good: the duo’s bickering is mostly played for laughs, which means that a late-stage attempt to shift the tone abruptly into the realms of terror really doesn’t come off.

There are other issues. While of course it’s commendable to incorporate Gaelic elements into new Scottish writing, reeling off words in the language and then repeating them in English feels ponderous. Non-Gaelic speakers should be able to work out what’s being said from the context. Furthermore, Lexie’s late-stage ‘revelation’ has no impact because it’s something that’s already been announced much earlier in the play.

MacNeil and Deans give this their best shot, and Heather Grace Currie’s set design cleverly evokes the great outdoors in the tiny space of Traverse 2. The costuming of the titular creature (played by Adam Buksh) is also pretty impressive but, sadly, it fails to generate the necessary chills to make that final gear-change work.

2.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Eilidh, Eilidh, Eilidh

18/03/25

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

This three-hander, written and directed by Lana Pheutan, explores the rural housing crisis through the lens of drunken cousins, Eilidh (MJ Deans) and Eilidh Bheag (Chelsea Grace). The two women are in their late twenties, ready to embrace their adult lives but thwarted by the prevalence of AirBNBs on their native island, Skye. “I’m a teacher!” wails Eilidh. “I deserve my dream home…” While her sense of entitlement is quite comical – she’s been working for just a few years and her unemployed boyfriend isn’t even looking for a job – she’s not wrong in her assessment of a broken housing market, where flats are snapped up by remote investors before locals can even get a look in. But living back at her mum’s is starting to wear her down…

Her solution? To persuade Eilidh Bheag to break into a holiday let with her and then… um… Well. She hasn’t really worked out what should happen next. It just seemed like a good idea half an hour ago, when the pub landlord refused them a lock-in.

MJ Deans imbues Eilidh with lots of sass and self-righteousness, while Chelsea Grace’s Eilidh Bheag provides a calmer foil, tempering the former’s outrage with a few gentle home truths. After all, Eilidh Bheag is the one who’s stayed on Skye, while her cousin’s been living the high life in Glasgow for the past eight years. How dare she come back to the island and accuse her of pandering to tourists, being “part of the problem”? “You only care when it directly affects you,” snaps Eilidh Bheag at last, tired of being hectored. 

The altercation is disrupted by the unexpected arrival of Miss Nicille Mhicheil (Annie Grace), an elderly local resident. The dynamic changes, and an inter-generational element is added to the polemic, injecting more nuance. 

Pheutan’s direction is sprightly and the pace never drops, although the dialogue occasionally sounds a little too much like rhetoric, the issues taking precedence over the characters and their immediate situation. On the plus side, the occasional use of Gaelic serves as a reminder of the culture the community stands to lose, and also sounds very authentic (I’m from North Wales, so the pattern is a familiar one: it feels very natural to me to speak English with a smattering of Welsh phrases). 

Eilidh, Eilidh, Eilidh succeeds in raising awareness of an important problem – and even moots an answer, albeit a little simplistic.  All in all, this is a heartfelt and ultimately heartwarming piece of drama. 

4 stars

Susan Singfield