16th April – 4th May 2024
Writer Tom Scott was born in London in 1947 and emigrated to New Zealand with his family at 18 months. A highly successful cartoonist, newspaper columnist and satirist, Scott has won numerous awards, including the Qantas Awards for New Zealand Cartoonist of the Year (seven times), Columnist of the Year, and Political Columnist of the Year (three times). He also won scriptwriting awards for Fallout and for View from the Top. He has been known to provoke New Zealand politicians, and at one point was banned from the press contingent for a considerable period of time by Prime Minister Robert Muldoon. In 2006, Scott was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services as a writer, journalist and illustrator.
His first play, The Daylight Atheist, premiered in Auckland, New Zealand, in April 2002 at Auckland Theatre Company. Since then, it has toured New Zealand and has been performed in Sydney, Australia. International Performing Arts Company Restless Ecstasy now brings it to the UK, directed by award-winning Richard Panzenböck and produced by Anne Marie Sheridon. This run stars Owen Lindsay (also Artistic Director of Restless Ecstasy), as Danny Moffat.
“Wonderfully written, produced and directed, the praise it received in New Zealand is well-earned and I have no doubt it will continue to entertain audiences wherever it tours”
Loosely based on the life of his father, (Scott followed up with a play about his mother, Joan, in 2018), The Daylight Atheist delivers an insight into the world of this post-war Irish immigrant living in rural New Zealand. We are introduced to a collection of characters over the duration of the performance, all delivered superbly by Lindsay including Ma, Da, wife Dingbat, son Egghead, Aunty Betty, Jack and other friends he meets along the way. Born into a protestant household in N. Ireland, Danny, frustratingly for him, serves in occupied Germany after the war. Frustrating because he never got to meet a Nazi. Not even see one. The appeal of New Zealand is sparked by his meeting of members of the New Zealand Air Force, and he soon decides that a life in the Southern Hemisphere serving alongside them is an attractive prospect.
Danny’s recollections are delivered from a single bedroom in a town on New Zealand’s North Island. The intimate setting of The Old Red Lion Theatre suits the play perfectly; the set, sounds, smells and accents we are presented with awaken the senses. Having visited rural New Zealand many times, I was transported back.
Crumbling walls, skeleton furniture comprising “a replica formica table”, a couple of chairs, standard lamp, dead flowers and a single armchair – this is the home of a man whose wardrobe includes holey socks, his old air force side cap and a dead man’s coat. He is funny, unkempt, vulgar, regularly drunk (although he never drinks at home), but, as we later learn, lonely. His disdain of the wife he ended up with following a shotgun marriage, only serves to enhance his feelings of desolation. “When the sun is out I don’t believe in God, but when the sun goes down, I believe like you wouldn’t believe…”
The excellent script delivers plenty of brilliant, laugh-out-loud moments, alongside poignant moments at times of life and death where we reach deep into Danny’s soul. Wonderfully written, produced and directed, the praise it received in New Zealand is well-earned and I have no doubt it will continue to entertain audiences wherever it tours.
Rhea Shepherd
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