Dark Earth

by David Harrower

When Valerie and Euan's car breaks down in remote countryside near the Antonine Wall they have a problem. With their mobiles left at home and an evening out arranged in Glasgow, they have to find help fast.

This comes in the form of Petey and Ida and their twenty-year-old daughter Christine, a farming family who live and breathe the history and traditions of the small area of earth they've made their home.

With the rescue taking longer than anyone could have expected, Euan and Valerie are drawn into a world and a family dilemma which is both familiar and unrecognisable at the same time.

Dark Earth was premièred at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in July 2003.

Genres: Plays, Drama

108 pages, Paperback

First published August 18, 2004

About the author

David Harrower is a Scottish playwright, who, as of of 2005, lives in Glasgow. His first play, Knives in Hens, which premiered at Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre in 1995, was considered a critical and popular success.

Reviews

[Ilias · Rating 3 out of 5]

I dunno. I didn't understand it. Seems to be a common theme with plays. Maybe if I read it again. I went to the library because there was nowhere else for me to be, and I went to the Stoppard because it's what I did last Saturday night when I was in the library because there was no place for me to be, and it was nice. There were five or so books out of place on the shelf and I chose this one mostly by chance. I don't know what it was about though, except, like? Family? I feel bad giving it two stars because the dialogue was well done. So. Call it two and a half and I'm rounding up. I hope it works out for them. I hope they're all happy. I definitely think that the British government in the eighties understood that an energy shortage would have been in their favor in turning public opinion against the miners. Though obviously it's not my area of expertise.