Appointment with The Wicker Man, An

Photo Eoin Carey

Based on the Motion Picture The Wicker Man, Motion Picture Screenplay by Anthony Shaffer, and the novel Ritual by David Pinner. And by Special Arrangement with StudioCanal. Read more …

On a remote Scottish island, the Loch Parry Theatre Players mount their am-dram version of The Wicker Man. When their lead actor goes missing in mysterious circumstances, they call on the services of a television cop from the mainland to step in and save their production...

The Wicker Man regularly tops "Best Horror Film of All Time" lists and is regarded as a true film classic. With an unforgettable sense of creeping dread, a wonderfully memorable score by Paul Giovanni, career defining performances from Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee it also has arguably the best ending in cinema history. Now, in an affectionate new adaptation, the National Theatre of Scotland gives a gallus round of applause to this immortal chronicle of strange goings-on in a wee village.

An Appointment with the Wicker Man features Greg Hemphill (Chewin’ the Fat) and Johnny McKnight (Little Johnny's Big Gay Wedding) alongside a line-up of comic talent.

It is at once a deliciously wicked homage to, and a tender celebration of, a piece of cinema history that reveals for us the spooky undercurrents lurking just below the surface of Scottish village life.

The Loch Parry Players are messing with forces they can't possibly comprehend but at the end of the night, only one thing is for sure . . . someone's going to burn for this.

The critical consensus

Continual references to the film may leave those unfamiliar with it in the dark, but the hilarious re-enactments of some of the best known scenes have everyone laughing.

Nicole Hepburn, The Stage, 23/02/2012

It is fun while it lasts, but fun is its chief purpose, and there is little going on beyond the silliness.

(*) (*) Mark Fisher, The Guardian, 23/02/2012

An Appointment With The Wicker Man is an enjoyable show, in other words, with a few good one-line jokes; and it makes its point that small communities far from the city are still as clannish as ever, and as resentful of people from the centre. The script, though, comes nowhere near the brilliance of the best comic writing for the Scottish stage.

(*) (*) Joyce McMillan, 23/02/2012

It's quaint and clever and pleasurable, but not funny or threatening enough totally to, well, take fire.

Susannah Clapp, The Observer, 26/02/2012

Performed by a top team of Scottish actors, An Appointment with the Wicker Man is a big-hearted and funny romp. It’s also throw-away and insubstantial, providing fun and laughter while it lasts, but nothing to get your teeth into once the comedy subsides.

Francis McLachlan, Northings, 27/02/2012

Despite following the narrative line of The Wicker Man fairly assiduously, director Vicky Featherstone’s disjointed and highly variable production never amounts to more than the sum of its parts.

(*) (*) Mark Brown, The Telegraph, 29/02/2012

All in all a bawdy, funny farce worth keeping an appointment with.

Alan Chadwick, STV, 29/02/2012