Good angel, bad angel is a new 1-act opera, premièred in Edinburgh on 20 May and toured to Glasgow, Peebles and Inverness on 21, 23 and 25 May; it received four performances in all. It lasts almost exactly an hour, and is scored for the slenderest forces imaginable – three singers covering six roles, and an orchestra of four players (bass clarinet doubling B flat clarinet, violin, viola, cello). The story is nasty, centring on the pointless murder of a miserly old shopkeeper on Christmas Day; it slightly reminds one of A Christmas Carol, except that it completely lacks Dickens's optimism and hope. The opera supposedly ends with the central character's redemption, but this is ambiguous and pretty hard to follow.