portrait of our time

Another Live Performance

2011-09-21T08:13:00.000-07:00

Thursday 6th October at 7.30pm in Finzean Hall

Splinters Productions presents The Matchmaker by J.B. Keane

Dicky Mick Dicky O'Connor a farmer in County Kerry, follows the great Irish tradition of matchmaking, pairing off the local lonely hearts so that 'every old shoe will find an old stocking'.

The results are heart-warming and hilarious, a potent mix of humour and poignancy
- a celebration of Irish country people in their search for love.

Starring Finlay McLean, Anna Hepburn and John Shedden.

Tickets £8 / £6 available from Mel on 01330 850674 or melshand.artist@gmail.com

Doors open 7pm

Uncharted Waters in Finzean Hall

2011-08-24T13:22:00.000-07:00

An exciting new circus dance theatre show coming to Finzean Hall on Wednesday 7th September at 7.30pm.
It is a creative collaboration between Strangebird Zirkus and All or Nothing aerial dance theatre. Both companies are at the forefront of a dynamic new performance style emerging in Scotland, which crosses the boundaries between circus, dance and theatre presented by POOT!

Three short stories, narrated through contemporary circus and aerial dance. A moment of decision, suspended in time. Two women on a nautical journey. A secret…while your money lasts. The audience travel through the ebb and flow of worlds on the edge of reality, witness to fear and triumph. Be swept away by spectacular skill on Chinese pole, aerial fabrics and rope together with stunning imagery and haunting live music & song.
Tickets £8 are available from Mel Shand. mailto:melshand.artist@gmail.comr 01330 850674.

Pinocchio

2011-03-07T03:40:00.000-08:00

The Cube Theatre who brought us “The Locksmith’s Wife” last year are returning with another live performance supported by NEAT:

Come and see “Pinnochio” on Thursday 17th March at 7pm in Finzean Hall
Cube’s enchanting new adaptation delights children and adults alike. Pinocchio is a captivating tale, featuring spellbinding puppetry, original music, and a bundle of laughs! The classic story of one puppet’s quest to become a real boy. Along the way he falls in with an assortment of colourful characters, who all try to lead him astray – but in the end, courage and love will see him through. Come and meet the puppets after the show.

For children 5-11 and their families.
Tickets Adults £7 / Conc £5 / Family £20

For tickets contact Mel on (01330) 850674 or melshand.artist@gmail.com

Film Club

2011-01-08T05:59:00.000-08:00

The next film club showings are on Thursday 13th January and Thursday 10th February at 7pm in Finzean Hall.

For more information please get in touch by emailing us.

POOT actors to perform again

2011-01-08T05:54:00.000-08:00

Some of the POOT actors and singers are to perform at a Burns Supper which is being held in Finzean Hall on Saturday 22nd January at 7 pm.

Tickets are priced at £8 for adults and £4 for children and are available from Hazel 01330 850717 or Heather 01330 850493

Bring your own refreshments

The evening is being organized by Finzean School and Ballogie Nursery Parent Forum

Fashion Show

2010-11-05T09:21:00.000-07:00

We are holding a Fashion Show in Finzean Hall along with Country Ways (country and equestrian wear shop based in Aberdeen)

Wednesday 17th November, 7pm for 7:30pm.

2 course supper and a complimentary glass of wine.

Tickets cost £20 and to book please call Mel on 01330 850674

Clothes to be modelled by local people

DEESIDE ORCHESTRA to perform in Birse and Feughside Church

2010-11-05T08:29:00.000-07:00

Deeside Orchestra present their autumn concert in Birse and Feughside Church, Finzean on Sunday 21st November at 3.00pm. Billed as an afternoon of music from America, the orchestra will play a varied programme with an American theme. Tea and home baking will follow the concert.

The programme includes George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris”, Sousa’s march, “The Stars and Stripes Forever”, Largo from Dvorak’s New World Symphony, and Hoe Down from Aaron Copland’s Rodeo Suite, as well as a selection from the award winning musical, Chicago.

Tickets for the concert cost £6 (children under 10 are free), and are available from orchestra members or at the door. More information is available on the website http://www.deeside-orchestra.co.uk

Doorways in Drumorty

2010-10-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

DOORWAYS IN DRUMORTY

Thursday 28th October

Finzean Hall at 7.30pm

Doorways to Drumorty presented by Red Rag Theatre Company.

Set in the North East of Scotland and based on the writings of Lorna Moon, the lass from Strichen who went on to become the highest paid Hollywood writer of her era.
During the last part of her life, Lorna wrote a series of short stories, subsequently published as Doorways - which caused controversy in her native Aberdeenshire, with many of the locals recognising themselves amongst the thinly disguised characters.
The play interweaves the stories (both humourous and poignant) of many of Drumorty's more colourful and interesting characters to provide a fascinating and entertaining slice of life in North East Scotland in the 1920's.

Tickets £8 / Conc £6 available from Mel on 01330 850674

Vote for SUPERFAST BROADBAND

2010-10-09T12:22:00.000-07:00

Do you remember when we had to vote to get BT to enable the telephone exchanges to be converted to accept broadband? Well they are at it again with fibreoptic connection to enable a "superfast" speed. The minimum communitynumber (according to Radio 4 this morning is 1000) so its worth voting for..You can vote here: http://www.racetoinfinity.bt.com/ for your area exchange to be upgraded. The more votes the better chance of this happening.

Film Club

2010-09-07T12:55:00.000-07:00

The long awaited POOT film Club has started

Films are shown monthly in Finzean Hall

Anyone wishing to join or find out more please contact us.

If you have any suggestions for future films please email us.

Creative Ceilidh

2010-09-02T08:47:00.000-07:00

Come along to our next Creative Ceilidh
Tuesday 7th September at 7.30pm
in Strachan Hall

The theme this time: "love"
Please join us and if your feeling brave enough to perform -either a poem, recitation, song or music of any sort, or simply join us as audience to enjoy the process.
Spread the word and bring friends.

All Welcome.

Voluntary Arts Scotland FREE network and training day

2010-08-25T11:13:00.000-07:00

Are you a volunteer member of an art club or group?
Would you like more people to take part in your arts/crafts activities?
Would you like bigger audiences for your events?
Do you need contacts, support, and advice on funding?
If the answer is yes to these questions we would like to help you.
Voluntary Arts Scotland FREE network and training dayAre you a volunteer member of an art club or group?Would you like more people to take part in your arts/crafts activities?Would you like bigger audiences for your events?Do you need contacts, support, and advice on funding?If the answer is yes to these questions we would like to help you.
DATE: Saturday 4th September
TIME: 10am - 4pm
VENUE: Woodend Barn, Banchory
will see the launch of Aberdeenshire Arts Team and VAScotland's Voluntary Arts Mapping and Support Programme - Finding Creativity. Join Aberdeenshire Arts Team and its partners Voluntary Arts Scotland, Aberdeenshire CVS Network, Growing Audiences North East and Aberdeenshire Arts Forums for an information sharing and training day.
Through presentations and workshops we will work together to look at how to sustain and build your voluntary arts groups, explore how to market your activities and encourage more people to participate in them. Meet other like minded people and groups, share good food and find out more about how you can help your group to expand and flourish. All participants will get a free digital goodie bag full of useful information on funding, support networks and a toolkit of good advice.
If you would like to take part then please call Julie Bisset on 01261 815989

Update Monday 18th January....

2010-01-18T11:25:00.000-08:00

Ten more sleeps until the dress rehearsal! -it's all becoming very exciting - thanks to Davie Hector the set is extremely robustly built and Maree Christie has been busy with her paint brush along with Emma & Rachel Lawson and Heather Cowie.
Sunday was a fun day at the hall as the backdrop is now up, primed and stretched and I'm ridiculously pleased with the results - I hope everyone else likes it!
We spent Sunday afternoon in a slow run through with - for the very first time one scene following another in the correct order -and trying very hard to make sure everyone knows where they are supposed to be at a particular time. The singing is coming along - just crucial that words are secured - and with Alison doing a little (and in some cases a lot....you know who you are.....)prompting we mosied through the script. In our first scene my heart is bursting with pride as it youngest stars are very nearly word perfect -and it's a long scene too - I suppose they don't have tax returns to fill in or have to worry about the weather for that matter!
Scene 2 we are now searching for a replacement postie - as our proposed star has had to withdraw....Im beginning to get the feeling folk are avoiding me again, someone told me on Friday her husband had wanted to speak to me about something but wasn't going to telephone incase I talked him into it!!
Scene 3 and my fishermen - David having slipped on ice was in a great deal of pain but soldiered on! -and Fin got his lines out without dissolving into giggles for once.Most excitingly of all in the prop department our very own professional set designer Frankie Collier has made the most awsome fish head for the school scene. Diana has done a really GREAT job in choreographing the teenage "chicks" and my lady moppettes have done an awsome job of choreographing themselves

Fingers crossed it's going as well as can be expected!......and hurrah Ive just found a postie -that's the lesson - there are no problems only opportunities!

The Locksmith's Wife

2010-01-15T04:15:00.000-08:00

On Thursday 11th February at 7.30pm there is a play called "The Locksmith's Wife" coming to Finzean Hall. Tickets are £8 for adults and £6 for concessions and are available by sending us an email or contacting Jane Winton on 013398 86955 or Wendy Hector on 01330 850453. To find out more about the play click on the following link http://www.cube-theatre.co.uk/

Snow business like show business!

2010-01-07T01:38:00.001-08:00

Despite the biggest and heaviest prolonged snowfall for years -rehearsals are currently in full swing for the performances planned for Friday 29th January and Saturday 30th at 7pm and Sunday 31st at 2.30pm. Tickets, £5 and £3 concessions are available now from Jane , Wendy and Phil .
So far we have bought the new community staging that converts into tiered seating - and for these performances we have hired Tullynessle Hall's -so we will have tiered seating AND extra staging!-Our kit will be available for hire too.
We have installed a 4m wide retractable projector screen and 4 lighting bars to accommodate the (nearly) all singing and dancing lighting system.
We are very soon to install a projector box under one of the beams and Maree has made a fantastic job of painting out the whole back of stage area in Oxford blue. This gives us a uniform back drop, smartens and unifies the stage area and looks great with the Farquharson tartan and pitch pine in the rest of the hall.
Due to the fact that this is very much about the taking part we are doing our best to accommodate a really splendidly large community chorus - of around 50 stars - it's quite a number to manage but they are doing a great job learning lots of new words to old tunes, all the movement we are working in and even a poem in broad Scots dialect -or at least an excerpt from The Muckle Spate. The set build is almost done and painting of all that commences this weekend, the programme in at first proof stage, the invitations to 520 households went out yesterday - I'm trying not to think of everything that needs to be done (or at least not all at once) in just 21 days!!

No time to feel guilty!

2009-12-14T01:16:00.000-08:00

I had intended to regularly blog progress on the play -a discipline that has evaded me so far. To say I have been busy and distracted seem in this day and age to be an almost hackneyed excuse -Every ones busy! -hopefully too busy to notice.....but before it's too late I have un folding news the story so far is this:The play now has a title (it's 5th) as it really is a sort of hybrid mongrel of a thing that has evolved more than my original concept of simply writing a story with some singing parts. Where has evolved after many ideas have been thrown into the pot - and nearly all of them incorporated (sorry Guy I just can't get my head around "clap" & "boo" signs for the audience....) anyway the title is "ive had another idea..and other stories" as this has been a running theme and catch phrase from the very beginning of POOT - and reflects the creative process that has roller coasted us to this moment in time.
Using some of the "folk-lore" picked up during the course of my photography sessions, including the story of "The Boar in the Barrow" - and taking references from babies born in lay-by's to what happens when someone telephones a house and asks to speak to George - when every generation that lives there has someone called George in it....there are references to raking dogs and illicit stills, old men of the woods and principally The Muckle Spate poem which has given me a running theme.

What I had not anticipated was how central the chorus would become! - The first plan was to take a series of stories and string them together with a few songs -thus allowing us to rehearse the little scenes separately and prevent lots of folk from having to hang around. However, following the open casting we really did grow like topsy -and now have a marvellous chorus of 47 ranging in age from 5 to...well I couldn't possibly say - but a few energetic retired thesps! - a great many more bodies that we imagined -so now linking the musical numbers are a cast of around 25 spoken parts - and in ADDITION to that we have one scene with 60 children!! -actually now I think of it - the reason I dont write all this down....makes me want to go and lie down in a darkened room. Thankfully supporting all this activity and chattering children is a supporting cast of another 40 or so good people who have pledged to help in many ways from sewing costumes, knitting fish, building and painting scenery and generally making things run smoothly. They range from the seasoned campaigners to the green but keen to help, the important thing is actually finding jobs for everyone! - harder than it sounds with such a lot to do - but my memory being almost full to bursting - forgive me if you approached me in the co-op and I made you a rash promise to call you if I needed you!

We have presented the cast with some well known songs....but we've changed lots of the words! -and some well know songs that I now realise are harder than they would appear - since when I tried them out - (belting them out in the sealed and secure privacy of my car....can't you just imagine it!)transfer that to 50 voices - of a song that is meant for a solo and I'm giving the Jolly band another headache! - No point in worrying about it - the main thing is that hopefully everyone is having fun. We have worked out that the hall is not big enough to "store" 60 excited children and so our lovely new head teacher has offered to open up the school for after the performances....the next thought is - with so many folk already performing - have we left enough folk to make up the audience?

Here is another (professional) theatre company doing something similar to us!

2009-11-10T02:53:00.000-08:00

PLAYING A ROUND WITH SHAKESPEARE from Wildbird
Mixing historical fact, fiction, myth and invention 'Playing a round with Shakespeare' embarks on a comical journey that takes in the history of golf, witchcraft, ancestry and the story of Macbeth - with a drop of whisky thrown in for good measure.
James VI of Scotland is now James I of England. As a true Scot he introduces the game of golf - a Scottish invention - to England. William Shakespeare is at the peak of his popularity and a favourite with the king. In order to keep on the right side of his king, Shakespeare reluctantly agrees to accompany James, who has a keen interest in ancestry and witches, on a homecoming golfing trip to Forres.

Shakespeare hates the game and as he struggled through the wind and rain Shakespeare's mind starts to turn to evil thoughts, plotting to kill his king with a blow to the head from a five iron. But, realising which side his bannock is buttered, Shakespeare finds an outlet for his frustration and misery in a new play, set in Scotland in which a lord murders his king in order to claim the throne and fulfill his destiny at the same time. Perhaps with a suitable ending showing James's lineage the play will take the King's mind off golf!

Touring to:
Royal British Legion, Buckie - Wednesday 11th November - 7.30pm
New Deer Public Hall - Friday 13th November - 7.30pm
Edinvillie Community Hall, nr Aberlour - Saturday 14th November - 7.30pm *PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE IN VENUE*
Warehouse Theatre, Lossiemouth - Wednesday 18th November - 8.00pm

Rembrence Day service

2009-10-31T01:03:00.000-07:00

2009-10-27T03:36:00.000-07:00

THE CURSE OF THE DEMETER from Visible Fictions -starring Jack and Sandra Holt's son Jonathon Holt
A spine tingling journey of suspense, suspicion and spooky sightings.

Visible Fictions presents the chilling and thrilling tale of the ill fated ship, the Demeter, and her ghostly cargo.

Inspired by Bram Stoker's Dracula, this new play will leave you sitting on the edge of your seat as things go bump in the night on board the jinxed ship. For thrill seekers over 11 yrs.

Woodend Barn, Banchory - Sunday 1st November - 3.00pm -That's THIS SUNDAY

Tickets from the Woodend Barn now

Casting days.........feeling musical? -or helpful

2009-10-27T02:27:00.000-07:00

Want to get involved? -
We are holding two sessions on Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th November in the Finzean Hall at 4pm to gather the team for the Community Play.
So far we have appointed a Producer -Guy Haslam, Writer & Director - Mel Shand, Musical Director -Louise Counsell, Voice coach,assistant writer & musical director -Alison Bell, Backstage manager - Phill Bonnamy,Assistant backstage - Marie Shaw, Set designer - Frankie Collier,Lighting -Francis Stevenson, Front of House manager -Jane Winton, Production Advisor Peter Young and holding the purse strings -Wendy Hector.

Now all we need are a cast and backstage crew!!

The performances will be 29th - 31st January -including a Sunday Matinee, tickets will go on sale after Christmas.

We are planning puppet making, singing and dance workshops in the next 14 weeks........Look forward to seeing you there.

Buy the book

2009-10-17T06:59:00.000-07:00

If you would like to buy a portrait of our time book

they cost £10 each and are available from

Jane Winton, Mel Shand or Guy Haslam.

Send us an email and we can organize it!

Prizewinners!

2009-10-08T12:20:00.000-07:00

The Poot competitions attracted a lot of entries and voting during the exhibition -we decided on a purely democratic method of judging - everyone got to vote!
In the end the winners of the adult photography competition were Lynn Allen with her wonderful sheepy snowy tee, and 2nd was Gary Grant with his alpine view of Clach na Ben. In the poetry stakes, the overall winner was Doreen Christie with her poem - Where I live - we were all so impressed with it when we received the entry it was also published in the book - well done Doreen - that's what happens when you're organised and get your entry in early!
2nd was Pat Lawson's entertaining tale of a Finzean burns Supper!. Poetry must run in the Christie Clan as Doreen's grandson 10 year old Kieran Strachan won the children's poetry competition!-Finzean sisters Evie and Robyn Falvey coming 2nd & 3rd respectively.
First in the children's photography was Amy Christie's beautiful rainbow taken outside her frontdoor in Finzean, 2nd was Zoe Paul's view up into a tree in her garden in Birse and 3rd Jemma Christie's Finzean road sign.
The drawing prizes went to Richard Davidson for his very good drawing of Birse Church and Calum Kitching's lovely drawing of his own front door in Birse. 3rd prize went to Cara Blackhall from Ballogie with her excellent map of Finzean and a special prize went to 6year old Stuart Patterson for his incredibly mature drawing of Clach na Ben!
Well done to all - pictured wearing their Lottery t-shirts are the prize winners who attend Finzean school.

Village Hall heritage talks

2009-10-08T12:12:00.000-07:00

During the course of the 2 weeks we put talks on in Ballogie, Strachan and Finzean Village Halls on the topics of The Innes Family of Birse, The Robert Burns connection, Birds of the area, the life cycle of the Atlantic Salmon and a year in the life of the Finzean Gamekeeper.
Over the course of these talks we welcomed nearly 300 visitors.

The POOT Map!

2009-10-08T12:11:00.000-07:00

Last day!

2009-10-08T12:07:00.000-07:00

Just some of the committee at the end of a long week and nearly 900 visitors!
Rick, Helen, Mel, Jane, Guy and Wendy - team shot!