Scotch On The Rocks At Playhouse Theatres

We continue our season in high spirits as Whisky Galore! The Making of a Fillum arrives from Nottingham Playhouse. Sir Compton Mackenzie's much-loved novel, based on real wartime events, is given a new twist as director Giles Croft bases his own adaptation on an incident which took place just hours before the start of filming for the classic Ealing comedy. Whisky Galore! The Making of a Fillum runs from 26 to 31 March at the Playhouse.

In his house on the Hebridean island of Barra, celebrated writer Compton Mackenzie - Monty to his friends - enjoys a glass of whisky illicitly salvaged 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"¦

Giles Croft's adaptation from the screenplay skilfully combines the behind-the-scenes drama of the making of the film with Mackenzie's original Highland caper to create a madcap production that - just like the original - is firmly founded on fact but embellished with a nip of dramatic licence. Giles is the Artistic Director at Nottingham Playhouse where his productions have included Polygraph, The Man Who, All Quiet on the Western Front and Chicken Soup with Barley. Hisprevious Ealing adaptations of Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Ladykillers and Passport to Pimlico have all enjoyed national tours.

Appearing as director Sandy Mackendrick will be Richard Shelton, best known to television audience's as Dr Adam Forsythe in Emmerdale, the GP whose winning charm gave way to deception and murder. The famously husky-voiced Joan Greenwood is played by Richard's fellow soap star Karen Drury, fondly remembered from her five-year stint on Brookside as the feisty but ill-fated Susanna Farnham. -- www.everymanplayhouse.com