Reviews

Allotment

It would have been so easy for this show to have been gimmicky, to have relied for its success entirely on its unusual staging in a real allotment – director Kate Nelson’s own plot, in the beautiful Inverleith Allotments to the north of the city. But thankfully there’s far more to it than that.

Jules Horne’s play is a sometimes painful, always brutally honest story of two sisters, who grow up together working this patch of land, going through childhood difficulties and ultimately questioning the extent to which they rely on each other. The script is lucid and concise, making great play of repetition and a kind of fragile poetry.

In moving performances, Nicola Jo Cully and Pauline Goldsmith are thoroughly convincing as the two sisters, from playing in the dirt as children to later asserting their independence through what they plant and what they reap.

It’s gratifying to see a site-specific performance use its location in such an inventive and fundamental way. And the welcoming tea and scones only add to the homely atmosphere.

– David Kettle