Further than the Furthest Thing invades the imagination; and confirms its status as one of the outstanding new plays of the last decade.

One of the most polished and effective pieces of work from this production team to date.

Benjamin Twist’s production at The Byre Theatre, St Andrews is hugely successful and exquisitely balanced….

…worth it just for Carol Ann Crawford's heartrending turn as Mill, a fish out of water in a world she never asked for.

Prime Productions has come up trumps again….

Prime Productions has come up with a spellbinding revival of this fascinating piece of work, where Harris takes the island as her starting point and creates a series of events and characters from her imagination—and what a fertile imagination it is…Not to be missed.

This revival comes not a moment too soon…Twist's production is often atmospheric, with some beautifully nuanced performances, not least from Jonathan Battersby (exceptional as Bill, the ageing head of the Tristan community), Matthew Zajac (convincing as the South African businessman Hansen) and Sam Laydon (the restless young islander Francis)…a strong production…it is a pleasure to see Harris's excellent drama return to the stage.

It is a richly and subtly textured piece, sensitively portrayed by a fine ensemble cast who use the strange, archaic language of the island, to create a deeply engrossing and moving sense of place and people poised on the cusp of disruption.

Two performances blaze out. Carol Ann Crawford clutches the part of the childless matriarch Mill to her heart with passion and sincerity shifting from a quaint naivety and wonderment to a feisty tower of strength, while Jonathan Battersby cuts a commanding, yet vulnerable leader whose descent into tragedy and death becomes a harrowing metaphor for the demise of a society which cannot adapt.

… a wonderful second half which contains a sublime monologue by Mill, who with the others has now been evacuated to Southampton, on the aching void that exile has created. Carol Ann Crawford as Mill gives a tremendous central performance.

Jonathan Battersby’s Bill is an intriguing character, spiritual and emotional, sometimes almost prophet-like and again very watchable. The ensemble of five all give excellent performances, Sam Laydon as the displaced Francis, Isabella Jade Fane as his first love and Matthew Zadjac as the boss who cannot remain distanced from the islanders’ plight.

It's appropriate this multi award winning play should be touring to far flung parts of Scotland. Themes - about being remote from the centre of things and how this affects the way you are treated - will gain added emotional resonance from audiences in peripheral areas.

The excellent cast, directed by Ben Twist, embrace the lyricism of the language and the emotions of the drama with enthusiasm and skill. By their strong characterization they provide a rooted-ness to the piece. This means - for all the non-naturalistic elements - the audience is fully engaged and care deeply about the fate of the characters.

Harris's huge imaginative effort in conjuring up these stubborn, poetic, clannish, secretive, kindly, ruthless and profoundly intuitive people, from a lost world of small and isolated human communities, exercises a powerful fascination, as does their haunting way with words. "It's all a bit weird," I heard one woman say in the interval, adopting the island language for herself: "But I is definitely wondering what will be happening next."

…powerful performances from Carol Ann Crawford as the childless island matriarch Mill, and Matthew Zajac as the businessman who takes the islanders under his wing…

(Carol Ann) Crawford (and what a pleasure it is to see her back in a role which really extends her) is a more substantial presence all round, more like a peasant, solidly rooted in the soil. As such she remakes the part entirely in her own image, that very rootedness making her confusion and upset about having to be uprooted from her small but familiar world all the more poignant.

…it seethes with subtexts, the rejection of the young pregnant girl, the terrible secret in the islanders’ past, the young man who wants to escape..

…successfully evokes the sadness and beauty of an isolated society threatened by the modern world and shouldering a terrible secret. This is achieved to a large degree by acting of the highest standard which grips the audience’s attention throughout.