There is nothing like coming late to the party. Having survived the pandemic unscathed and about to head for a holiday in France, last month I returned from a night at the theatre coughing and spluttering, and you know the rest. Two red lines. No holiday. There probably would have been no holiday anyway as it was the time of the great heatwave and Europe was in flames, especially round the part of France I was heading for.

The thing about late coming is that those who have arrived earlier do at least tell you what to expect which does help. But you don't get all that much sympathy. As it is, four weeks later I am still not bounding with energy but the red line is where it ought to be and I did not fall for the message, apparently from the NHS, saying I had been in contact with Omicron and could apply for a free test kit. All I had to do was pay the postage. At which point the alarm bells rang. I had not reported that I had caught Covid and paying would mean revealing credit card details. It was like those phone calls about deductions from your bank account, asking one to press one to talk to an official.

So what does one do confined to barracks? One of the things I do still is write about films and one which came my way was Michael Caton-Jones' film Our Ladies, which premiered at the London Film Festival in 2019 and then fell victim to the pandemic. In spite of enthusiastic reviews, it has been seen hardly anywhere but you can find it on the likes of Amazon Prime. Set in 1996, it tells how five Catholic schoolgirls leave Fort William to attend a choir competition in Edinburgh led by Sister Condron, a gloriously spikey Kate Dickie. They have other thoughts on their minds than harmonising. Edinburgh for them is Sin City. Leith Walk has all those saunas and dodgy dance clubs where they plan to sin during the free time before singing in the competition.

It is bawdy, beautifully acted and lots of familiar Edinburgh landmarks appear, although, as so often in films, one is never quite sure that place A could have been somewhere within reach of place B. But what we see is the world before mobile phones, social media and the pandemic, all of which have changed things forever. Maybe some people will view it with some reservations as the film written by Caton-Jones and Alan Sharp is based on the novel by Alan Warner and Lee Hall's play, Our Sisters of Perpetual Succour. Men writing about women...

But have a look and prepare to be either outraged or wildly amused and enlightened. It is one party to attend even late.

Bill Russell



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