OMOS

OMOS pays homage to a historical performance given to King James VI of Scotland with a little-known Black history, alongside connections between Puck’s Glen and Stirling Castle and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In the play, a group of performers rehearse in a forest, where they meet Puck, before they eventually perform for the royals at the palace. Puck’s Glen, with its magical forest and waterfalls, is named after Puck from the play. In 1594, a performance was given to King James VI of Scotland and his family at Stirling Castle. The original plan was for a lion to pull a chariot through the Great Hall. However, organisers were concerned that the lion would frighten guests and it was removed. Just one year later, and possibly inspired by this event, William Shakespeare included a joke about royals being scared by a performance featuring a lion in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. However, there is an often untold Black history at the heart of this. When the lion’s appearance was cancelled in the Stirling Castle event, an unnamed Black man pulled the chariot instead - one of a number of Black people who featured in performances at the Scottish court.

The title OMOS was originally an acronym for the phrase ‘O monstrous! O strange!’, a quote from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As the project developed, this phrase has beenmorphed to stand for ‘Our Movement, Our Stories’. The film has an ambiguous title of solely OMOS.