Orphans at the Eden Court

I had a lovely relaxing day on Thursday, sitting in the bench in the garden drinking coffee and watching James planting some heathers, and little white butterflies flitting around the garden. Tom was also outside watching James, but Flora stayed in her customary position under the bed upstairs until late evening when she happily went out into the garden in the dark. I don’t think that she is scared of going outside exactly, it’s more as if she has got into the habit of staying indoors during the day and going out at night. After lunch we went for a stroll around the village and did some errands.

Late afternoon, we drove through to Inverness. I had booked a play at the Eden Court, a musical in fact, called “Orphans” which is currently touring Scotland. But first we went for a pre-theatre dinner to the Contrast Brasserie, just across the river from the theatre. We were early enough to go for a little Riverside walk. I was very impressed by the restaurant; it seemed to be a Scottish/Korean fusion menu, and was very tasty indeed. The service was excellent too, and we had plenty of time to eat and then make her way back to the theatre. The show was great. It was a dark comedy about four adults whose mother has died, and what happens during the stormy night preceding her funeral. The different characters of the siblings and their fears for the future caused them to react in very different ways. The music was very good as was the acting. The most well known member of the cast was Robert Florence who co-wrote and started in the Burnistoun series, and there were a couple of other familiar faces from the Scottish comedy scene such as Paul McCole who has been in Limmy’s show. However a lot of the cast were very young and not long out of drama school, and they were all great. Amy Conachan was fantastic as Sheila, and Reuben Joseph had real presence as Michael, but they were all really good actors and good singers too. This is why I love going to the theatre; you never know when you are going to come across something outstanding, and this was one of those evenings.