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SKYE: A Thriller

 
Mark Harding Review by Mark Harding 4 Published: 16 Aug 2025 Summerhall Show Dates: 31 Jul 2025-25 Aug 2025

This two-hander opens with the tropes of a ghost story. Annie has agreed to be filmed for a paranormal documentary. The interviewer wants to record an account of a simple spooky event – Annie’s dead father appearing on the beach. But Annie isn’t going to settle for a simple story.

Steele’s expressive face is almost overwhelmingly powerful

The two actors, James Robinson and Dawn Steele, play multiple roles. Steele is especially impressive, instantly switching between fully formed characters and giving Annie a highly charged, but believable, display of emotions. The device of using the video recording allows close-ups of Annie to be judiciously used: full of grief or guilt, Steele’s expressive face is almost overwhelmingly powerful. Robinson plays the secondary characters with aplomb, but there are times when the portrayal of the key role of Brawn, Annie’s brother, feels like overdone bluster. This may be because the character of Brawn doesn’t quite ring true in the writing. He is sometimes a bit of a plot device, and the impact of his own story’s conclusion is rather wasted.

Ellie Keel’s debut subtly yet vividly shows the effects the death of a father can have on each member of the family. There is grief, there are suspicions of family secrets, and there is an unwillingness to let go.

As the story progresses, Annie delves ever deeper into her memories, detailing the accumulation of small events, coincidences, and mistakes that lead to a tragic conclusion. The play is subtitled “A Thriller”, but it is not a thriller in the conventional sense. There is no malicious human agency. Instead, the gradual mounting of all those details gives a sense of a family cursed by fate.

The play could be accused of being overstuffed with too many incidents and half-developed themes. However, with such strong performances and well-judged direction by Matthew Iliffe, the show is an emotionally raw examination of the hidden currents of grief, guilt, and responsibility.

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The Blurb:

1995. Holidaying on the Isle of Skye, Annie and her siblings glimpse their father across the beach. Which seems impossible, because he died four years ago. What follows is a relentless search for the truth, on a rugged island where real people and ghosts seem to walk hand in hand among the mountains and lochs. A chilling, propulsive debut thriller by Sunday Times bestselling author and Olivier-nominated producer, Ellie Keel, whose Summerhall hits include SAP, An Interrogation, Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz and The Last Show Before We Die. Winner: The Stage Producer of the Year 2024.