Tuesday, BBC 2, BBCiPlayer, Screenwriter and Director Daina O Pusic.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0030qjb/tuesday

Tuesday is a stupid film. I don’t mind stupid. Sometimes I welcome it. It makes me feel smarter. I didn’t really get it at first. Some kind of scene in which a grime-covered, size-shifting macaw who listens to hip-hop, lifts its wing and people are at peace?

It took me a while to realise this was Death.

The plot is identical to (I re-read it to make sure) to Duncan Williamson’s short story, Death in a Nut. Williamson was one of those strange characters we too rarely encounter. He was born in a tent on the shores of Loch Fyne. And spent most of his life listening to and transcribing stories from Scottish travelling folk.

Jack, the protagonist, is a young laddie, much as it’s easy to imagine Williamson was, content enough to live on the shore side in a cottage where his mum had a wee croft. Every morning Jack followed the tides beachcombing to see what he could salvage.

But his mum, is sick, dying she telt him.

Tuesday (Lola Petticrew) is paraplegic and dying, she warns her mum Zora (Julia Louis-Dreyfus).

Jack meets death when he’s up at first light, walking on the shores toward their cottage. Death is an old man with a sharp scythe on his back. He breaks the scythe and beats the old man. The more he beats him, the smaller the old man becomes. He imprisons Death in a hazelnut. Stops it up with a stick and flings it into the water for the tide to take away.

Zora is Jack.  Not a very believable character. She spends her days keeping up the appearance of working while not actually working. The American equivalent of “SNEP”, a salaryman or  Solitary Non Employed Person in Japan.

She pays for Tuesday’s care and carer by selling off artefacts she had upstairs in her house (where Tuesday can’t see).

That would never work unless it was the size of Buckingham Palace and filled with similar unclassified works of art.

But Zora loves her daughter. She’s not going to let her die.

And no big or wee talking birdlife is gonnae get in her way.

Aye, I guess there’s some Scottish mythology there. Some things never quite work out the way you want them tae. Everyone who lives has to die. Get real with the cosmic messages.