Anna Burnside reviews a production 'with much to admire' but emotionally leaves one cold.
Amy Liptrot is unavoidable in Edinburgh this year. This Lyceum production for the EIF joins a film starring Saiorse Ronan at the film festival and an event at the book festival.
It’s a lot of dramatic heat and light for an introspective memoir about recovering from alcoholism.
Stef Smith’s adaptation complements the book’s sparse style, showing not telling whenever possible. Director Vicki Featherstone fleshes this out by using a chorus to add texture and a soundscape that takes the action from Orkney to Edinburgh then London before washing the wrecked protagonist back home.
Isis Hainsworth does a great job as the Liptrot character, here called Woman. She’s never off the stage and goes from party girl to messy drunk before our eyes. It’s a mercifully unsentimental performance.
The production is visually impressive, with a clever hummock-strewn stage and a revolving cabin that becomes everything from an underground rave to a beach on Papa Westray. Background projections show the nature that became Liptrot’s salvation.
What is missing is any reason to invest in Woman and her recovery. We know she survives because she wrote a book about it. But the other characters - the boyfriend who can’t cope with her drinking, the friend who has to sack her for being hungover at work - are sketched in. Only her bipolar father gets a glimpse of a hinterland.
There’s much to admire in The Outrun but it ultimately left me cold.
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The Outrun is part of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival. It performs at the Church Hill Theatre until August 24, 2024.
Photo by Mihaela Bodlovic.
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