The Guardian 4 August 2024

Amy Liptrot’s memoir is having a moment. Nora Fingscheidt’s screen version starring Saoirse Ronan is about to open in the Edinburgh international film festival and, here, running for the full length of the Edinburgh international festival, is Stef Smith’s adaptation for the theatre.

The book, though, is an odd choice for the stage. On the one hand, it is easy to see the appeal to Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum, the co-producer: The Outrun is a popular title that offers a vivid modern-day portrait of Orcadian life. But on the other, it is hard to imagine how an introspective piece of writing that makes no claim to the dramatic could work theatrically. [READ MORE]

By Mark Fisher

MARK FISHER is a freelance theatre critic and feature writer based in Edinburgh and has written about theatre in Scotland since the late-1980s. He is a theatre critic for The Guardian, a former editor of The List magazine and a frequent contributor to the Scotsman and other publications. He is the co-editor of the play anthology Made in Scotland (1995), and the author of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide (2012) and How to Write About Theatre (2015) – all Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. He is also the editor of The XTC Bumper Book of Fun for Boys and Girls and What Do You Call That Noise? An XTC Discovery Book (both Mark Fisher Ltd).