I Was A Beautiful Day
by Iain Finlay MacLeod
by Iain Finlay MacLeod
A soldier grappling with his traumatic past finds connection and courage through mapping memories and sharing stories with a fellow inmate and a visiting cartographer.
About The Play
About The Play
★★★★ Four Stars, WhatsOnStage
★★★★ Four Stars, RemoteGoat
How many stories can a simple map hold?
Dan is a survivor, but in hiding from the world. Invalided out of the first Gulf War with shellshock, exiled from his native Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, he now lives in a hospital on the mainland. He spends his time charting his memories of home and war on maps, sheets and rocks, remembering even the smallest detail, and conjuring mythical stories of home with his unpredictable fellow inmate, Lube.
Anne works for the Ordnance Survey and has been sent way out west to add place names and geographical features to the maps of Lewis. She is convinced that Dan’s obsession with mapping his past is a treasure trove for the public good. But can Dan find the courage to confront the past and return to the community he left behind?
An intimate, funny and deeply moving tale of resilience, memory and cartography, uncovering a few of the mysterious stories that make up the history of the British Isles.
I was a Beautiful Day was commissioned by the Traverse Theatre in 2005 to open the new An Lanntair Arts Centre in Stornoway, Lewis, before embarking on a Scottish tour including the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh.