Details

In a house on the Hebridean island of Barra, celebrated writer Compton Mackenzie - Monty to his friends - enjoys a glass of whisky illicitly salvaged during the recent war from the wreck of the SS Politician. The cameras are standing by to film an adaptation of Whisky Galore! his fictionalised account of those events, in which the Politician is thinly disguised as the SS Cabinet Minister and the island reborn as Todday. But the film version is already in crisis: its director Sandy Mackendrick has torn up the screenplay, and Monty has reservations of his own. Together with the producer, the across Joan Greenwood, Monty's secretary and his great-nephew, they assemble in his study to put a hasty rewrite to the test. They assign parts and soon all six are energetically re-enacting the story. Monty himself reads the role of Captain Waggett, the English Home Guard commander who is outraged when the islanders help themselves to the stricken ship's cargo and alerts Custom and Excise. Starved of their beloved whisky by wartime shortages, the men of Todday exercise all their Celtic cunning in hiding their unexpected bounty from the excisement, with Waggett's humiliation culminating in a helter-skelter car chase across the sands...

Cast/Performers

Karen Drury (Joan Greenwood), Richard Shelton (Sandy Mackendrick), Robert Austin (Compton Mackenzie), Sally Armstrong, Tim Bryn Smith, Matthew Cullum

Creatives/Company

Adapted by(s): Giles Croft (adapted from Compton Mackenzie's original book and the screenplay by Mackenzie and Augus MacPhail), Giles Croft
Producer(s): BV Productions, Nottingham Playhouse
Director: Giles Croft
Design: Helen Fownes-Davies
Sound: Adam McCready
Lighting: Richard G Jones