Shay Mace
Somewhere deep in rural Scotland, a trio of friends unite around a park bench to unwind the past few years – from the indulgences of alcohol and drugs through to leaving a toxic environment in home. Their complaints about the complications of adulthood offer a searing insight into modern life, despite being a reramp of Simon Longman’s script that has aged 7 years since its debut. Anna Whealing’s inventive staging matches spirited central performances and engrossing production design to deliver a captivating portrait of the human results of regional neglect and decline.
17 year old Kate’s Dad is slowly declining in health, and when she gets hold of his car keys for the first time all she can think about is leaving her small town life behind to explore what lies beyond the horizon. In vignettes, she drifts across her teenage years spent with friends Sam and Pete drinking in parks and trying anything to feel something. Her angst follows her every step of the way, and her frustrations with the confines placed on the lives of her and her friends leads to disillusionment and refusal to engage with anything that isn’t hedonistic fun.
As with all benders, Kate’s teenage years soon catch up with her, and things soon spiral desperately out of control. It is Longman’s focus on the human realities of policies that neglect small towns such as this that feels so deeply resonant today, with haunting moments such as when Kate learns her father will have his carer taken away that feel gut-wrenching, alongside hearing about the normalisation of domestic violence and abuse in the face of all this adversity.
It is a difficult task to explore human geography and politics in an emotive setting, but Longman’s script does it with equal balance of precision and empathy. Moments where we see Pete unable to obtain jobseeker’s allowance because the cost of the bus fare to the nearest large town would eat the whole payment away are a blistering reminder of the unjust geographic inequality inflicted on those already with the smallest prospects, in some of Scotland’s most remote communities.
Maria Woodside plays a believable and despondent Kate, already world-weary at the age of seventeen, but it is the naivety that she captures in Kate’s facial expressions that makes the whole piece so heart-breaking. She is flanked by the effervescent Kyle McLean, who bounds onto the stage and steals it each time he appears with his brash and bombastic presentation of Pete. The more subtle presentation of Sam from Mollie Milne delivers a believable, relatable, trio of pals torn apart by a politics of disregard.
There is a sameyness to certain scenes that lingers a little, and at ninety minutes it is certainly not a concise hearing, but a thorough one nonetheless. Alongside this, some lines are delivered at such a break neck pace that you find yourself still catching up with the last vignette as we somersault into the next. As the closing moments take a dramatic shift, the cast appear re-emboldened to depict these character with purpose, and lead us into what becomes a deeply tragic finale.
An absolutely enrapturing production design on stage traces the outlines of the piece, situating the isolation of these young people against a humming drone that permeates the sound design. For a group of emerging theatre-makers, this feels like a highly professional touring production, and Whealing’s tight direction opens up so much emotional weight for the cast to grasp at, and they clearly relish in the opportunity.
It should be made clear that there is plenty of humour found along the way, with a couple of belly laughs, especially in McLean’s abounding presence as Pete, who seems to find no end to antics. The humour and tragedy follow one another step-in-tow, and allows the cast to bring the audience with them all the way to the bleak ending.
Lucid, sharp, and desperately prescient, Whealing and Swan’s vivid reimagining of Island Town impresses vastly.
Recommended Drink: Steal a couple of cans of cider from your parents and meet this trio out in the park.
Performances of Island Town have concluded at Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh, as of May 2026.
Image Credit: Ryan Rutherford
Elisabeth Flett
