Glasgow Theatre Blog

Actor and playwright Kenny Boyle’s newest work starts this week.

An Isolated Incident is a new play presented digitally in six parts. Through six interconnected monologues, each delivered by up and coming or well established actors from the world of Scottish theatre, An Isolated Incident explores how people deal with isolation and the removal of our comforts and coping mechanisms. The play explores the mental health repercussions of fear and loneliness, the impact on the very young and on the elderly of being cut off from social interaction, and the terrible emotional cost for those with no one to reach out to. It also explores the various techniques–be those exercise, TV, or escaping into an inner fantasy world –that we use to help us adapt to this new normal. Each monologue has a strong focus on mental health and mental wellbeing. Each also has an unwavering dedication to the importance of speaking out, reaching out and destroying stigma. Most crucially each revolves around an incident of human kindness and connection and contains that most valuable of things: hope.

The play will be available to watch online for free starting from the 4th of February 2021, here: https://www.facebook.com/KennyBoyleOfficial.

Kenny Boyle said: “2020 and the start of 2021 have been different for everyone, but it they have been unanimously hard. We truly believe that this shared worldwide hardship has given us all more empathy. If we manage to reach even one person who’s struggling with the mental health implications of loneliness and make them feel less alone then we feel as though we’ll have achieved something immeasurable.

This is only possible thanks to the support of Creative Scotland and we are delighted that they have afforded us this opportunity to tell these stories and to do something that, in some small way, makes people feel less isolated, and more connected.

As is the case with most theatre during this unusual time An Isolated Incident is filmed entirely on iPhones, edited on a free software on a home PC’s that valiantly do their best to rise to the challenge of video editing, and the performances are all captured remotely from actors hiding under blankets to improve audio quality. At its heart, it’s a lockdown iPhone project… but we hope it’s a really good iPhone lockdown project.

We are proud to be collaborating with Scotland’s Domestic Abuse and Forced Marriage Helpline to raise awareness of domestic abuse during lockdown – particularly in the episode named “werewolf”

With permission, we provide the details of SAMH on all of the episodes so that anyone affected by the mental health issues we discuss knows there is somewhere to turn. SAMH have no direct involvement with the project other than permitting us to signpost them.”

Episode 1 is written and performed by Kenny Boyle an actor and playwright from the Isle of Lewis. Kenny trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and is a recipient of Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland’s New Playwrights’ award 2021. Kenny plays the lead role of Rob in feature film Lost at Christmas.  

Episode 2 is performed by Karen Bartke an actress and voiceover artist based in Glasgow. On screen she is best known as Officer Karen in the BAFTA winning mockumentary Scot Squad, audio credits include Alien: River of Pain and Sandman for Audible UK. She’s the winner of the BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Debut Performance in 2016 (My Name Is, dir. Philip Osment), and winner of the Norman Beaton Fellowship 2016

Episode 3 is performed by Natalie Clark a Glasgow based actress who most recently completed a tour of Scotland with Rapture Theatre in The Browning Version. TV credits include Still Game and Royal History’s Biggest Fibs for the BBC. Feature film credits include Love Bite, Lost at Christmas, and the upcoming film The Last Bus.

Episode 4 is performed by Gillian Massey a Glasgow based actor with a diverse background in both live and on-screen performances. She made her Edinburgh Fringe debut in the three-hander comedy Irrelevant, which was shortlisted for the Scottish Arts Club Theatre Award, and returned to the Fringe in the one-woman play The Lament of Dorothy Wordsworth, which also ran at Glasgow’s West End Festival. More recently, she has appeared in online shows for Short Attention Span Theatre and The Gaiety Theatre.

Episode 5 is performed by John Michael-Love who featured in Series 1 of popular TV Show Outlander, and recently featured in Police Scotland’s 2020 campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of online grooming. His stage roles include Polonius in Bard in the Botanics’ 2014 production of ‘Hamlet’ and Jack Jarvis in Sonic Boom Theatre Company’s 2012/2013 reboot of the original ‘Still Game’ stage show.”

Episode 6 is performed by the entire ensemble working remotely across Scotland from the Outer Hebrides to the Borders and in between.