ONE of the gnomic sayings of the Gaelic culture is: ''If a man does

not know something, he will know something else.'' And something I don't

know is what this Mull Little Theatre Company's mixter-maxter of

cross-cultural music, oration and song is about. The something that I do

know is that it is entertaining.

Right from the beginning you don't know whether you are watching a

play, or being part of it -- a kind of MacHair. Alice is a feminist TV

journalist, intent on proving that women are oppressed in Gaeldom. Lisa

Grindall makes what is a sketch of a stereotype believable with a fine,

firey and lightly sardonic touch, a woman half-corrupted but striving

still for her own version of the truth.

She is faced with the grinning, girning and darkly ironic face of the

Gael -- one more aware of the opportunities to exploit the incomer, and

also half-corrupted by the possibility of material advantage.

There is some excellent Gaelic singing from Ishbel MacAskill, above

whose head the Celtic twilight forms before your very eyes, and some

acting that would be awful were it not for its complete lack of

pretension. Iain Morrison as the bilingual Bard could not act his way

out of a paper bag with a flame thrower but is commanding as well as

likable, and the impish musician, Norman Chalmers, plays Flo Hittel

(Gaelic for subtitles) in an alien mask with flashing antennae, as well

as bringing the house down with his dancing puppet.

It's a ceilidh, a complaint and a not very successful try at

discussing the lowlands/Highland and Island dichotomy, but it is also

thought-provoking and fun.