Suicide and depression among young people seem to be endemic to Scotland these days, for many reasons, and this is partly the theme of Jim Harbourne’s gentle and heartwarming musical.
The Myth of the Singular Moment looks at the choices we make, those moments when decisions must be made that will change a life forever. It takes a journey with two such people, the one a young woman who potentially has Huntingdon’s, a fatal and degerative neurological disorder, the other a serial suicider—unsuccessful of course.
It seems like life just doesn’t want to let him die. So he goes all the way to Beachy Head where success seems assured and there he meets a man who, in his efforts at dissuasion, jumps over the cliff himself… and is miraculously saved.
Meanwhile, Sophie, who has fallen off the waggon again, is scared to open the envelope containing the letter that will reveal her future, two versions of which are possible. What is the letter in the envelope going to tell her? Can she live with the news?
Both protagonists carry packbacks and train tickets and this is the motive that unites them, the journey each must travel, the destinations they chose, the routes converging and diverging again.
The narratives are recounted by a deeply empathetic Harbourne and Kirsty Eila McIntyre, interspersing the segments of their sad tales with songs about life, its ironies, fears and joys and above all the potential for beauty in those simple everyday things that can make it worthwhile.
They are both excellent musicans, performing on a range of instruments and singing in such plaintiff harmony, herein the real beauty of the performance and our engagement.