There’s a lot of cinematic references in David Greig’s extraordinary
play, especially from island girl Ellen, who often leaves the island she shares
with her uncle and travels the 40 miles across the North Sea to watch films on
the mainland. Her favourite is Way out
West which she has seen 37 times possibly because of her love for Stan Laurel,
but the film I was most minded of is Michael Powell’s The Edge of the World (1937) which dealt with an island very
similar to St Kilda which was evacuated in 1930 after local industry gradually
died out and there just wasn’t enough population to self-sustain.
Ellen’s island is a lot smaller and, following the death
of her father she has no option but to support her Uncle on what he describes
as a place with no soul, given over long ago to “paganistic” worship and which
he sees only as an opportunity to make money…
I have noticed that
something draws us towards outlying islands. Some force pulls…
So muses Oxford-educated scientist Robert (Tom Machell)
who has an almost mystical obsession with outliers and the wild nature they
sustain, he is a man who grasps opportunities and is constantly – obsessively –
observing, and not just the bird life; Ellen watches him watching her, his dark
eyes so fixed she feels as if he grasps her within his hand.
 |
| Jack McMillan and Tom Machell (Photos courtesy Timothy Kelly) |
Robert is joined by colleague John (Jack McMillan) who is
more of a photographer than an observer, cataloguing what he finds with more
detachment. The men have been sent to the island to record the wildlife and,
especially the rare Leach’s Fork-Tailed Petrel, and they have a month to
catalogue the animals “fighting, flighting, feeding…” and their ever burrow.
They arrive to be greeted by old man Kirk (Ken Drury) who
shows them to an abandoned chapel, with a broken door that becomes a running joke
in a play that mixes humour with a deeper and darker message about humans and nature.
Kirk introduces them to his young niece, Ellen (Rose Wardlaw) and both are,
naturally, aware of her “presence” with Robert quickly teasing John about his
virginity and his expectation that he’ll fail to compete.
Robert follows his instincts and John is forever “hovering”
never diving in for the kill or to taste life to the full, always held back by
excuses of manners and dignity.
Meanwhile, the men find out from Kirk that The Ministry is
planning to use the island to test biological weapons and will reimburse the
old man for lost earnings from his Puffin farming and other uses of the land. Without
knowing this, the men have been sent to effectively “cost” the project by
counting the wildlife that will be killed. Robert is appalled at this potential
destruction and starts to restrain the old man, weak of heart and drunk on too
much whisky, Kirk has a heart attack and dies… Robert’s fault, perhaps, but not
something either man will confess to.
 |
| Rose Wardlaw and Ken Drury (Photo courtesy Timothy Kelly) |
Ellen mourns her Uncle, but is surprisingly disconnected,
she is freed now and this is her island. As the lads move Kirk’s body,
intending to bury him after three days of lying in state, she wakes to see them
struggling to open the door… at first we think she’s crying but them she bursts
out laughing at these two funny men, “Laurel and Laurel” which is high praise.
To cap things off with proper ceremony and in recognition
if this pagan church, she sings a pagan song which, it turns out, is “Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia” from Way Out West – a great moment with the
three voices combining to uncanny effect…
Ellen is unleashed and thereafter the story takes a
different tone as the three begin a closer examination of their own natures…
free from constraint and still three weeks from the next boat.
Ellen recounts watching one of the men, tumbling down a
cliff face, stripping at the water’s edge, “pleasuring himself” and then diving
into the waters… she has become the naturalist and is watching them with the
same calculation as Robert. The skinny dipper was John but he tortures himself by
holding back from making any move with Ellen… it’s a question of nature versus
nurture and mannered repression but the outcome is far more complex than that.
We’ve been made film
stars by his gull eyes…
David Greig’s play is lyrical, funny and unsettling in a
positive way. There are traces of Powell’s later magic-realism as well as
everyone from William Golding to Derek Jarman via Samuel Beckett and it doesn’t
do predictable. The fact that is based on actual incidents – de-populated
islands and government weapons tests – adds a real-world subtext of ecological
and scientific abuse. But it’s the mysteries of human sexuality and our refusal
to treat ourselves with respect as animals that hit the hardest. We all want
the awakening Ellen has… and the freedom of seabirds, forever living in the
uncertain moments.
Jessica Lazar directs her players to create an
atmospheric and moving mystery, and Rose Wardlaw is especially compelling as
the closeted lass whose true nature brings surprises and delight as the two men
circle, one confused and the other in a rapture of natural abandon. Good job
all round!
Outlying Islands
plays until Saturday 2nd February and tickets are available from The King's
Head Theatre website and box office, it’s another example of the strength of Islington
theatre and I recommend it without hesitation.
Ithankyou Rating: **** Great cast and an intriguing journey out to the farthest reaches of
ourselves.
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