In December 1900 the lighthouse is only a year old, but has already accumulated a sinister reputation after a double tragedy befell the first family to live out there and tend the light. As a result it's been designated a "stag" lighthouse, to be tended only by rotating teams of men rather than resident families.
James Ducat (Ewan Stewart) and Donal Macarthur's (Graeme Dalling) winter begins badly when the third person meant to man the island falls ill, and is replaced by fisherman Thomas Marshall (Jamie Quinn.) Macarthur in particular is very worried that the new assistant is too inexperienced for a job as difficult as this one. In some ways Marshall acts as our guide to the remote and lonely place, as he tries to get used to not only the cold and storms, but living with the monosyllabic boss Ducat and his abrasive deputy Macarthur.
The only times Marshall gets much out of them is at night as they prepare to take their shifts making sure the light stays on all night, and they fill him in on the stories of ill-fated keepers in this and other lighthouses who've lost their minds as a result of the stress, isolation, lack of sleep and possibly supernatural factors on top of them. It keeps the newcomer awake at night but when he's not in the room, the more experienced wickies (the nickname comes from having to keep the lamp's wick tended in the early days of lighthouses) seem to believe there's something shadowy stalking them as well.
Shilpa T-Hyland's production is most effective in these eerie storytelling scenes - Bethany Gupwell's lighting dims and shifts, casting shadows around Zoë Hurwitz' set, whose mix of naturalistic kitchen and unfinished elements leading off elsewhere lends a slightly disorientating effect from the start - I kept expecting shadowy figures to impossibly arrive from the spiral staircase to nowhere that hangs over the men's heads. Add Nik Paget-Tomlinson's sound design with its creaking floorboards and sudden knocks, plus the obligatory scene of exploring a pitch-dark night in torchlight, and though there's not really many effective jump-scares a decently creepy mood builds up.
Unfortunately Morrissey loses his nerve with the supernatural element in the end, and the mystery sort of limps to a conclusion: It's a downside of building a horror story out of a real event - Ducat, Macarthur and Marshall were all real people on Eilean Mòr, and ultimately it's fair to show a bit of sensitivity to the memory of men who most likely died in a freak accident, but it does come abruptly, and at the expense of any release for the tension built up until that point. (Also, the programme space dedicated to John Bulleid's illusions sugeests we might have got more than, er, two, so I was definitely expecting more of a horror climax than we got.) Wickies works very well in world-building, and creating an atmosphere of isolation where the mind can play tricks on you, but it drops the ball a bit when it comes to delivering on the ghost story it's been wrapped up in.
Wickies: The Vanishing Men of Eilean Mòr by Paul Morrissey is booking until the 31st of December at Park Theatre 200.
Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes including interval.
Photo credit: Pamela Raith.
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