Interview: Writer Paul Morrissey and actor Ewan Stewart on WICKIES: THE VANISHING MEN OF EILEAN MOR

Wickies: The Vanishing Men of Eilean Mor starts previewing at the Park Theatre next week. During rehearsals, we caught up with actor Ewan Stewart and writer Paul Morrissey about the show.

Ewan, you play James Ducat in Wickies: The Vanishing Men of Eilean Mor. What attracted you to the role?

I was attracted by the quality of the writing. The dialogue is natural, the story well told. James Ducat is an interesting man. On one hand, a pragmatic and extremely competent worker and on the other, a man sensitive to realms and beings beyond this one. I was happy for the opportunity to perform in my mother tongue.

What can audiences expect from this production?

They can expect first and foremost to be entertained. Since beginning rehearsals I have found every person in every department to be committed with great care to delivering a show worth seeing. And it will be.

What do you think really happened to the Lighthouse keepers on the island?

Confidential and Redacted.

Do you believe in ghosts and the supernatural?

66 years ago, my mother saw a ghost, a child so yes, credo.

If you could be a ghost for one day, who would you haunt?

I would be the ghost of Christmas yet to come, appear to climate change deniers and show the horrors that await if we continue to abuse our beautiful awe inspiring planet.

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Paul, what attracted you to writing a play about the story of Wickies: The Vanishing Men of Eilean Mor?

So it turns out, I’m something of a Pharologist. Still amateur in status I hasten to add, but there’s something about lighthouses that I think a lot of us find fascinating.  Something about their heroic purpose, maybe. Or their elusiveness. The countless tales of lives saved and solitary lives lived within the confined, yet breath-taking structures. A lighthouse felt like a brilliantly atmospheric setting and the three men had just enough written about them to give me a way in. Yet there was enough still unknown to create my own story of what I think might have happened. I’m also a bit of a detective/mystery buff so the idea of writing about an enduring mystery that, to this day, remains unsolved, was too good an opportunity to turn down. 

What do you think really happened to the Lighthouse Keepers on the island?

Truthfully, I don’t know. I’ve read so many theories and, maybe apart for the sea serpent, there’s validity in all of them. Perhaps it was the world’s largest ever recorded wave that drowned them as they desperately tried to secure the landing crane. One of them could have indeed gone mad, killed the other two and then himself. The loneliness and isolation of a lighthouse has been known to drive some keepers mad. Or perhaps it was something else. Local legends and superstition claim the island has a long history of being connected to the world of the supernatural. 

As part of my research, I talked to a lighthouse keeper who worked on various lighthouses up until they became automated. He knew someone who worked on Eilean Mor and told me a story about how one day this keeper was on a ladder, painting the outside of the lighthouse, when a wave came over his head. Perhaps this isn’t that shocking until you realise the lighthouse is already 150 ft above sea level. He thought a giant wave was the answer. And perhaps it is. But of course it wouldn’t be one wave, it would have been two. And they wouldn’t have been big waves, they would have been the biggest ever recorded. So whilst it seems the most explainable, I’m genuinely not convinced! 

You’ve written mystery thrillers before with When Darkness Falls, but do you actually believe in ghosts and the supernatural?

Not so long ago, I would have said absolutely not. But at that point, I was thinking of ghosts in the most traditional sense. A sort of ‘scooby doo’ ghost that bangs doors and moves the remote control. However, writing both When Darkness Falls and Wickies has opened my mind to a slightly different question. Less, ‘do I believe in ghosts’, and more ‘what exactly is a ghost’? When you ask that question I think it opens up a really interesting conversation. Is a ghost an actual person trapped between worlds, or is it a memory? A trauma perhaps that haunts us. An energy. Something that lives in the walls. Freud suggested that hauntings can be psychological unfinished business. Unprocessed pain. And if that is the case, then I think on some level, we’ve all experienced ghosts. 

Why do you think ghost stories are so popular at Christmas time?

I think historically, there is a long-standing tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas. Spooky storytelling gave people — particularly in the Victorian period — something to do during the long, dark evenings before electricity. You can see the Victorians huddled around the fireside, hot cocoa in hand, trying desperately to scare one another. Perhaps there’s also something in the fact that it’s near the end of the year, and a time when we think about people and places that are no longer with us.

And then of course there’s A Christmas Carol. Arguably the world’s best ghost story. As Dickens wrote, “the ghosts of Christmas are really the past, present and future, swirling around us in the dead of the year. They're a reminder that we're all haunted, all the time, by good ghosts and bad, and that they all have something to tell us”.

What other supernatural story would you like to write about?

That’s a great question! I’m not sure I have any other supernatural stories left in me. Not at the moment anyway. But you never know. My next play is actually about Alcatraz and I know I could have easily gone down the ghost route with this one. It is regarded as one of the most haunted places in the world. But I managed to avoid it…so far. I guess, watch this space. 

Wickies: The Vanishing Men of Eilean Mor plays at the Park Theatre until 31 December, with tickets available here.