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Island Town

Tron Theatre, Glasgow 

Four stars

 

Teenage dreams come dead on arrival in Simon Longman’s blistering study of wasted youth, first seen in 2018 and revived here in dynamic fashion by director Anna Whealing and producer Aila Swan. This is delivered by an electrifying trio of young actors who, over the production’s relentless eighty-minutes, don’t let up for a second. 

 

As Longman’s title suggests, the scene is a town on a barely inhabited island where a population of dead end kids alleviate their dead end lives by getting out of it on cheap cider and whatever substances they can get their hands on. Kate, Sam and Pete also have each other, clinging on for life itself with a no holds barred gang mentality that sees them rage with unfocused energy in search of something better. 

 

Having left school with what careers advisors would call no prospects, and with brutal family lives only offering violence of one sort of another, the unholy trinity form a kind of surrogate family. Where Sam and Pete don’t see any other option but to make do and muddle through, Kate has big ideas beyond her ongoing self-destruction, and is going to save them all. Yeah, right. 

 

Longman’s play tackles the age old disenfranchisement of small town kids in search of something - anything - to stave off the boredom. These aren’t privileged poshos playing at being rebels, but like so many working class teens looking for a way out, come from nothing and are going nowhere. There are recognisable versions of Kate, Sam and Pete hanging around every street corner. Not all of them take things as far as Kate does, mind you, in a ferocious mix of everyday anger and a restless desire for change. 

 

This is brought to life by Maria Woodside as Kate, Millie Milne as Sam and Kyle McLean as Pete with a breathless collective force that sees Longman’s machine gun dialogue ricochet between them with an urgency that takes no prisoners. A non stop barrage of verbal riffs echo across the play’s series of short scenes with such force that at times you wonder how the actors’ minds are keeping up with their mouths. 

 

As a study of youthful disaffection, Longman’s play taps into a sensibility where taking things too far is seemingly the only solution. The result here at least is a tragic aftermath that sees Kate’s world get ever smaller before she explodes her way out in a sensitive study of a latter day lost generation trying to find their way home.


The Herald, April 10th 2026

 

ends.

 

 

 

 

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