Para Handy

All aboard the ‘Vital Spark’ for a voyage of hilarity, hypocrisy, and high jinks. In this new production written and directed by John Bett, Para Handy and his crafty crew return to entertain you with their exploits. For those of you who have not before encountered the infamous figure of Para Handy, he is the Gaelic skipper of a Clyde puffer who first appeared in 1905 in the Glasgow Evening News in what became a regular comical column by Neil Munro (under pen name Hugh Foulis). 

In this new drama, Para Handy – A Voyage Round The Stories of Neil Munro, John Bett retains the fun natured innocence and quaint olden-days charm of Munro’s enduring characters: Para the scheming skipper (Jimmy Chisholm), Dougie his Hieland mate (George Drennan), Sunny Jim the wee Glasgae Tar (Sandy Nelson), and old Macphail the cranky engineer (Peter Kelly). The show is made up of a series of sketches which unfold below the decks of the ‘Vital Spark’ via various reminisces between the entertaining bunch of characters .

Bett’s choice to use music as a significant element of the show captures the spirit and context of a céilidh in which song, story and music are exchanged. 20th Century real life video footage from the Scottish Film Archive features as a back drop to the performance and set the oldie worldly scene. Musicians play on stage, in and out of role, and the actors appear in the isles of the theatre during various points of the show. This creates an intimacy to the performance and captures a real sense of community spirit of a production in a West Coast village hall. The sketches include a variety of comical scenes ranging from Dougie going barky to the spell of a hypnotist and Para’s date with Mary Crawford (Annie Grace). Each are richly flavoured with wit, wordplay and well-humoured “craic”. The jokes satirise religious, linguistic, and social difference within Scotland –Gaelic and Scots, Highlander and Lowlander, Catholic and Presbyterian – along with light hearted, tongue in cheek humour sure to leave any audience in relentless laughter.