Review: Further Than The Furthest Thing,Young Vic - charmed by island life but questions remain
17/03/2023
In Shakespeare's Island play The Tempest, Caliban says: "Be not afeared, the isle is full of noises" should the inhabitants of the remote Atlantic island in Zinnie Harris' play be afraid of the noise under the water or something else?
The noise is undoubtedly distracting Bill (Cyril Nri) from the arrival home of nephew Francis (Archie Madekwe), who has been off-island in Cape Town for months. But Bill does seem to have a demeanour of general anxiety and mild panic - is it a result of past events?
Based loosely on actual events on Tristan da Cunha, the most remote inhabited island in the world, the island of the play offers a simple life where everyone has a patch of land and subsists on what they grow or catch, plus what supplies the occasional boat brings.
Francis' return from Cape Town is an exciting time for his Aunt Mill (Jenna Russell), it's an opportunity to tell him about all the things he's missed, and maybe he's brought some sugar.
The inhabitants have a particular way of speaking with a mixture of accents, there's Scottish, Irish and West Country in there: "How can an h'egg be as bad luck?"
It is both familiar and strange, the people quaint - but theirs is a peculiar life, mostly cut off from the rest of the world.
Francis doesn't bring sugar back to the island, he brings a stranger, Mr Hansen (Gerald Kyd), a South African businessman who can do sleight-of-hand magic tricks. He wants to build a factory.