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★ ★ ★ ★
“a magically minimalist production… challenges the possibilities of imagination in story, technology, and staging”

(Outlier Scotland)

★ ★ ★ ★
“Finn Anderson’s music is ruddy gorgeous”

(Lyn Gardner)

★ ★ ★ ★
“the loops and harmonies of Finn Anderson’s score for Islander are astonishing… it’s a gorgeous production, rich in wit, musicality and transformation.”

(The Guardian)

★ ★ ★ ★
“a real treat… it is Finn Anderson’s music and its delivery which really sets this apart… There are just the two actors, their voices and the loops which they record live, building up everything from the breath of a dying whale to the techno music of a teenage bedroom, an angry village meeting and an even angrier storm… the results are quite something.”

(All Edinburgh Theatre)

★ ★ ★ ★
“it's both the complexity and simplicity of Islander that make it so thoroughly enjoyable”

(The List)

★★★★ The Guardian
★★★★ Fest Magazine
★★★★ The Stage
★★★★★ Broadway Baby
★★★★★ Musical Theatre Review
★★★★★ BritishTheatre
★★★★ WhatsOnStage
★★★★ The Skinny
★★★★ Exeunt


ORIGINAL CAST RECORDING

Listen online wherever you get your music


ABOUT THE PIECE

Eilidh stares out to sea and dreams of a new life beyond her lonely island. Myth and reality collide when the tide washes a mysterious stranger onto her beach, changing her life forever. Epic storytelling, intimately staged with a contemporary Scottish folk-inspired score.

The two-hander cast of Kirsty Findlay (Olivier Award Nominated, Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour) and Bethany Tennick perform a whole host of characters, while weaving, building and layering their voices using live looping technology to create an expansive, ethereal soundscape for the ears and imagination.

Winner of Musical Theatre Review’s Best Musical Award. Nominated for Off West End Award for Best New Musical.

Part of Made in Scotland Showcase 2019 and originally developed in association with Comar, Islander has received several international productions and translations, been adapted for radio with BBC Radio 4, and for screen with Dundee Rep Theatre ad Eden Court Highlands.

Conceived & Directed by Amy Draper
Book by Stewart Melton
Music and Lyrics by Finn Anderson.

Devised with Kirsty Findlay & Bethany Tennick
Produced by Helen Milne Productions in association with Mull Theatre
Supported by Creative Scotland. 
Original Cast Recording produced by Finn Anderson & David Macfarlane


Productions

US Tour 2023
Off-Broadway, Playhouse 46, New York, 2022
Wooran Foundation, Seoul, South Korea 2021-22
Mull Theatre & Scottish tour, Helen Milne Productions 2018
Paines Plough Roundabout, Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2019
Southwark Playhouse, London 2019
BBC Radio 4, 2020
Theatre Elision, Minnesota, 2020
Re-imagined for screen, Dundee Rep, Eden Court Highlands 2021
Teatru Kameralnego w Bydgoszczy, Opera Nova, Poland 2021