Forbidden Experiment
Forbidden Experiment
Arches, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
The truth is out there - and with the Freedom of Information process on hand to open old (and sometimes darkly redacted) files, the sleuthing curiosity of the Enormous Yes company has homed in on Inchkeith. Why? Well the little island in the Firth of Forth has often sheltered gross inhumanity that justified itself as scientific experiment.
In 1493, two hapless, speechless, wee weans were isolated on Inchkeith by order of James IV of Scotland. Their only companion was a mute woman: the King was curious - would the tots talk? If so, what language? Would the word of God fall from their untutored lips? During World War Two, the British Army descended on Inchkeith - they too, apparently, were interested in language deprivation and the mechanics of communication.
Enormous Yes (Michael John O'Neill and Rob Jones) have immersed themselves in researching these, and other Inchkeith episodes, for their own experiment - a foray into mixed-media performance where music and movement are as much the conduits for thought and expression as the spoken word. As these elements criss-cross, with fantasy colliding with fact, and O'Neill's angsty poetics about a lost, loved 'she' muddled into references about wartime nuclear testing - the splitting of the atom somehow linking to the splitting of a single cell into two embryos - it's hard to know which thread to follow. Previous showings by Enormous Yes encouraged the Arches to give them a Platform 18: New Directions award. Forbidden Experiment is the over-egged, higgledy-piggledy result.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article