Benighted on the Moor

To listen to the radio play, click here:

Geolocated audio walks

The play is also available as a series of geolocated audio walks at Corrour, Rannoch and Bridge of Orchy stations. Click here https://linktr.ee/geotone_cic to download the play before you head off on the train, and remember to bring your headphones.

NOTE: While the walks are easy, you should allow at least 75 minutes for the experience and the return to the station. Please wear suitable clothes and footwear.

About the play

Benighted on the Moor is an audio drama that tells the true tale of seven Victorian men who traversed Rannoch Moor in January 1889 on an intrepid, not to say foolhardy, attempt to map the route for the now-famous West Highland Line. The coming of the railway marks a cultural watershed moment for the land it runs through, as it brought outside influences to some of the remote Gaelic speaking communities; both for good and bad. The drama aims to explore that moment.

The making of the play was a community project that involved local amateurs as well as professional actors and creatives with a special connection to the West Highland Line.

Tearlach Macfarlane – as ‘the old boatman’

Written by: Paul Hernes Barnes with Eilidh Cameron Sykes and Lodhaid MacRath
Performed by: Ingrid Henderson, Phillip Kingscott, Gregor Firth, Lodhaid MacRath, Tearlach Macfarlane, Lauren Byrne, Eilidh Cameron Sykes and Paul Hernes Barnes
Poster design: Autumn Illustration
Sound Design: DJ Dolphin Boy
Music: MAXWELL QUARTET (maxwellstringquartet.com)
Supported by: Spirit of the Highlands, Creative Scotland, ScotRail, Caledonian Sleeper, WHCRP & Glenfinnan Station Museum

Special thanks to the Old Laundry recording studio, Glenfinnan.

SOURCES:
Blackwood’s Magazine (W.J.G.F, 1927)
The West Highland Railway (Thomas, 1965)
The West Highland Railway: The Politics of Promotion in Late Nineteenth-Century Scotland (McGregor, 1998)