The set is nothing more than a small section of floor and two chairs. The lighting rig is functional, the few moments of music brief and entirely unobtrusive. A Slow Air is the story of two estranged siblings, Athol and Mona. There are no frills, no spectacle to distract from the excellent performances.They are brought back together by Josh, Mona’s son. Mona is fiery to the point of belligerence and fiercely self-reliant – she walked out on her family at the age of seventeen and, for better and worse, has been making her own way ever since. Athol is a dependable, reasonable man who soon finds himself embroiled in events outside of his comfortable life of floor tiles, contracts and golf.The play offers a window into each of the siblings’ lives, a snapshot of a wider whole that is entirely believable as a life and yet still interesting and poignant. The script is not entirely perfect – it dwells on the musical tastes of the siblings merely to set up the ending and there is a subplot regarding Josh’s Islamophobic obsession with the 2007 Glasgow airport attack that feels tokenistic, an intentional sign of the times.The characters address the audience, each telling monologues that slowly weave their full story without ever turning to one another. Each is a masterstroke of perfectly-timed delivery and subtle mannerism. A Slow Air is theatre at its simplest – a fine story well-told.
