'Islander' review or 'Can you see me? Can you hear me?'

Islander

Southwark Playhouse, 4th October 2019

Written for The Guardian 

What an exceptionally thoughtful new musical this is, and how imaginatively realised. Islander is, in part, a fairly naturalistic show about a lonely young girl, Eilidh, the last child left on a remote Scottish island. But Amy Draper’s delicately persuasive production is also an unusual and elusive work about the importance of storytelling and the tales we choose to believe in.

With just two actors, a near-bare stage and Simon Wilkinson’s subtle lighting design, a small but rich community is brought bustling into life. At the lively town meetings – in which the future of this dwindling island is fiercely debated – Bethany Tennick plays Eilidh with a glowing innocence. But she also conjures up burly blokes, cranky gossips and an exhausted pregnant mother. Kirsty Findlay plays Eilidh’s eclectic friends, including her prank-loving grandma, a stern scientist and a mysterious girl who washes up on the shore. It’s a special kind of theatrical magic to watch these two stretch their faces, loosen their limbs and jump so deftly from one character to the next.

We gradually realise how little it takes to bring a town to life, and how much there is to value in even the smallest collective. Threaded among all this is Finn Anderson’s Scottish-folk-inspired score, which Tennick and Findlay sing, record and mix live on stage, weaving the pure harmonies up, over and around each other. The searching score is combined with uncanny sound effects; wind whistling at night or a whale gasping for breath.

Gradually a powerful feeling of otherness builds and the unshakeable sense that there is something bigger than ourselves, whether that’s nature, religion or the myths we use to explain the world we live in.