The Boy Who Thought He Could Swim

What do you do when your child is convinced they are a selkie – part human, part seal?

This new play by David McNeish plunges the audience into the dilemmas of an island family trying to make sense of life when it’s not only the sea that’s cruel. When Lizzie and Gavin move back to Orkney from the Western Isles, things were supposed to get easier, for them and for Malcolm their teenager. Malcolm’s insistence on being a selkie leads to ever more serious consequences until there is no hiding it from the neighbours. But how do you help a child who insists they are not your child? All is not well beside the seaside.

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The Boy Who Thought He Could Swim was originally commissioned by Unlimited and An Tobar and Mull Theatre and developed to a rehearsed script in hand performance in May 2024.

We were then awarded a grant from Creative Scotland to resolve the technical challenges of staging an ocean, add to Eilidh Nicoll’s wonderful animations and design a staging of the play that could tour Scotland. We had a smashing team of creative folk to do this – bringing back everyone involved in the original development and adding lighting, staging, design and movement.

The play is now ready to tour and we’re preparing a bid to do just that with Creative Scotland.

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