Back from a mini tour of Yorkshire and Stockport and cheering for supporting act Indignation Meeting
Greig charts a rocky terrain of self-discovery in atmospheric drama
PIC CAP Out of the shadows: Rose Wardlaw as Ellen Pic: Clive Barda
ALISTAR FINDLAY is mesmerised by this multiple ‘Visions of Scotland’ assault on the audience’s eyes and senses
The Star's critics ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA reviews I Am Love, The Penguin Lessons, Freaky Tales, The Thicket
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
New releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ
Peter Mitchell's photography reveals a poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
Outlying Islands
King’s Head Theatre, London
FIRST given an outing in Edinburgh in 2002 and only staged once in London since then, David Greig's Outlying Islands follows the fortunes of Robert and John, two young ornithologists fresh from university who, in 1939, land on a tiny uninhabited Scottish island for a cold summer studying the habits of the local birdlife.
They're accompanied by the island’s puritanical absentee leaseholder Kirk and his somewhat cowed but quietly smouldering adopted niece Ellen, sent to keep an eye on them until the boat returns in four week’s time.
Dramatic developments overtake the party almost as soon as they step onto the rock, setting the three youngsters free from any semblance of authority and pitching them into a dreamlike whirlpool of emotions as they consider where their new-found autonomy away from the prying eyes of society might take them.
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