During childhood, a young girl known as MAGPIE (9) is locked in her bedroom and deprived of light. Trying any way she can to bring light into the room, Magpie is frustrated when she seems defeated at every turn. When shards of light manage to seep in through the cracks in the boarded-up windows, Magpie’s joy is obvious.
Now grown up, Magpie loves being out in the sunshine. She doesn’t talk to people but likes to follow them although it’s unclear why. Her behaviour seems bizarre to those she watches or follows and a shop assistant threatens to call the police when he sees her, revealing that she must be known to him for some reason. Magpie wanders around Dundee taking in the sparkle on the river from the sunshine and lays down in a wood, completely content to be out and about while it’s bright. It seems Magpie may be looking for love when she sits down beside a random man, CALLUM, in a coffee shop and shakes his hand. Bewildered by her behaviour, Callum assumes she’s homeless and offers to buy her something to eat. Once Magpie has left, Callum realises that he’s missing a very important item…
Full of determination, child Magpie decides it’s time to change being alone in the darkness, while the effects of her trauma are fully realised as an adult. With themes of loneliness, prejudice and isolation, laced with dark humour and twist in the tale, Magpie is a study of childhood trauma, loss of connection and how those can affect us in later life.v