Kieran Hurley didn’t know what to expect when he hitched up in a tiny car and embarked on a road trip around rural Perthshire to talk to the local farming community about creating a new play. With Perth Theatre artistic director Lu Kemp also on board, writer and performer Hurley’s intention was to weave together assorted voices representing those living on the frontline of communities often marginalised from political discourse. It is they, however, who will be forced to square up to the consequences of recent decisions, with their already parlous livelihoods potentially at stake in whatever new landscape emerges out of an increasingly fractious post Brexit referendum climate. Initiated by Kemp, the result is A Six Inch Layer of Topsoil and the Fact it Rains, an evocatively titled piece of verbatim theatre performed as a ceilidh play by actor/musicians Aly Macrae and Melody Grove. Rather than presenting the show in Perth Theatre itself, Kemp has opted to tour it around a network o
An archive of arts writing by Neil Cooper. Effete No Obstacle.