SNP WILLIE MACRAE CONSPIRACY PLAY COMES TO DUNOON –AUTHOR TALKS TO DCR
Written by Archie Fergusson on 14/06/2015
Playwright and actor Andy Paterson comes to Dunoon this Tuesday 10th June to The High Kirk Hall, Hanover Street with his one-man play,
3000 Trees: The Death of Mr William MacRae.
The play was a sell-out at last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe and is currently touring Scotland.
The play tackles the death, in 1985, of SNP politician and anti-nuclear campaigner Willie MacRae who was found dying in his car on a lonely highland road with a single gunshot wound to the head.
It was believed by many at the time that Willies death, far from being a suicide, was murder.
Winnie Ewing then President of the SNP and herself an accomplished lawyer – was directed by the SNP’s National Executive Committee (NEC) to conduct an internal investigation for the party to come to a conclusion as to whether she “was satisfied or dissatisfied with the official version that he committed suicide”. Having been refused access to police records of the investigation and rebuffed by both the Lord Advocate and the Procurator Fiscal in her attempts to conduct private, confidential meetings with them, Winnie, as she later wrote, came “up against a brick wall”, she reported to the SNP NEC that she was not satisfied with the official account of suicide: “I do not know what happened, but I think it is important that the truth emerges, despite the time that has passed.
Why the State refuses to let the truth be known is a pertinent question.
Andy Paterson’s play takes on a journey from Willie MacRae’s service as an officer in the Royal Indian Navy, where he was marked out as ‘subversive’ for supporting Indian independence, through his anti-nuclear campaigning, his involvement with radical groups and on to his death. Throughout this journey, the complex and sometimes troubled Willie MacRae tells his own story.
Andy will be visiting the DCR97.4FM Studio on Monday after 5.00pm during the LLLVLBS to chat to Victor about this colourful larger than life character who came to such a tragic end and left so many unanswered questions.
Victor will also be asking Andy does he regret not becoming an actor earlier than he did , Andy didn’t take to acting until a few years ago after graduating from the Royal Conservatoire in 2011 at the age of 47, prior to this he had a varied career as a journalist, musician and designer.
3000 Trees: The Death of Mr William MacRae is at The High Kirk Hall, Hanover Street, Dunoon on 14th June. Show starts 7.30pm .
There will be a Q&A session with Andy Paterson after the show.
Tickets are available on the door priced £12/£10 or in at www.3000treesdunoon.brownpapertickets.com
