Lorraine Giles

The play The Storm Watchers was originally written as a short piece to be part of a pageant in the late Sixites in Stromness. The work was later performed in its own right with some additions. A powerful and poetic piece, the drama presents the lives, anxieties, regrets, fears and memories of women as they they deal with the waiting and the aftermath of a storm with all their men at sea. Filmed in lockdown in Orkney this project has involved technology, remote rehearsal, mobile phone cameras and much more besides. In this year of Mackay Brown's 100th birthday, it brings to life one of his early but also most powerful pieces of theatre.

The bitter fight for supremacy between the three most popular girls at North Gateway High takes an unexpected turn when their classmate, Tanner, is outed and becomes the school’s first openly gay student. The trio races to bag the big trend in fashion accessories, the Gay Best Friend, while Tanner must decide whether his skyrocketing popularity is more important than the friendships he is leaving behind.