Outlying Islands
David Greig
Directed by Jessica Lazar
Jermyn Street Theatre
Star rating: 4
David Grieg’s intense 2002 play is about isolation, female sexuality, friendship, religion and wildlife – among many other things. It’s as thematically dense as a piece of Highland tartan and perhaps that’s appropriate as it takes us to a remote (fictional) Scottish Island. We’re forty miles from the mainland and in the late 1930s. War is imminent.
Two young men, both recent Cambridge graduates, arrive with their equipment to survey the island’s wildlife. They’ve been sent, rather wonderfully, by the “Ministry” (of what, we never learn) but they soon discover that, with the country on the brink of war, the Ministry’s agenda is about germ warfare rather than conservation. Yes, this play was inspired by the true story of Gruinard Island which was deliberately infected with anthrax, thus killing all wildlife, as part of a WW2 scientific experiment.
Initially there’s a lot of comedy in Outlying Islands. Roast puffin which tastes like chicken cooked in axle grease, anyone? The accommodation is hilariously primitive. Kevin McMonagle as the dour, blinkered owner of the island who’s hoping for lots of compensation money from the Ministry, is terrific, He talks with his face and times his lines with all the skill of a virtuoso violinist. He is also rather good at keeping extraordinarily still – no spoilers.
It all darkens (literally – fine lighting design by David Doyle) especially after the interval as things between the intense but ruthless Robert (Bruce Langley – strong) and the rather more naïve and gentle John (Fred Woodley-Evans – good) gradually complicate. And we know, poignantly, that all those fascinating birds they are so interested in will not be there much longer.
Then there’s Ellen, niece of the island owner. Whitney Kehinde brings chilly reserve to this young woman who is totally isolated from other women and young men although she’s a film buff which presumably dates from before her arrival on the island because her uncle regards cinemas as dens of iniquity. She too is an “outlying island” Then, once the restrictions are gone – “O brave new world that has such people in it” – she starts uninhibitedly to find herself and we watch her discovering her own womanhood and feelings she has only before had for Stan Laurel. It’s a fine performance combining touching innocence and subservience with burgeoning strength and self-determination.
(c) Alex Brenner.
Of course the play, which was new to me, is part of a tradition of island literature. There are elements of The Tempest – made even more overt by Christopher Preece’s evocative, often stormy, sound design. And at the end, when the army officer (nicely doubled by McMonagle) turns up to take them away from this island of dark secrets and doomed petrels, there’s a strong whiff of Lord of the Flies.
It’s a treat, for once, to see a fresh, well directed grown up play which both entertains and grips – as well as leaving you with a lot to think about.
Photographs by Alex Brenner
