Homers

Synopsis

A tough and funny play about Glaswegian orphans forcibly transplanted to the Islands.

Homers is poignant, fantastical and unflaggingly hilarious.

1967.

Alex and Mary are 'homers', sent from care homes in Glasgow to live with a new family in the Islands.

They are thrown into the kaleidoscope of island life: the teacher who barks in a strange language; the Minister and his penchant for Elvis; Andrena with her fetish for Hebridean delicacies.

Alex pushes his new dad too far and is sent back to Glasgow into the care of Mr Pig, a sadistic butcher.

But Mary, back on the island, has troubles of her own.

So Alex finds himself on the ferry again, slicing through the black mirror of the sea.

Iain F. MacLeod's play Homers was first staged at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in 2002.

Themes

• Orphans