Theatre preview: Para Handy, Pitlochry Festival Theatre
ByDavid Pollock
Para Handy is a typically Scottish hero.
He is the Gaelic captain (his name is the Gaelicised version of his given name, Peter Macfarlane) of the Clyde puffer steamboat the Vital Spark, which sailed up and down the West Coast of Scotland in adventures written by journalist Neil Munro.
Published in the early years of the 20th Century in the Glasgow Evening News, Munro’s tales were comic capers starring the captain and his crew.
These stories were also a historical document of Clyde shipping and life during wartime, however and they’ve regularly resurfaced on television and the stage in the century since.
Duncan MacRae, Roddy McMillan and Gregor Fisher all portrayed Para Handy on screen, while this new production has been adapted by Scots stage stalwart John Bett. A live band will provide the musical score.