EdFringe Review: SKYE: A Thriller

I went into SKYE: A Thriller with high hopes, such was its provenance. Written by Sunday Times bestselling author and Olivier-nominated producer, Ellie Keel, and directed by the award-winning Matthew Iliffe, and performed by none other than Dawn Steele, with support from National Theatre alumnus James Robinson, the signs were good

Yet, by the closing lines, I was still waiting for the “chilling, propulsive debut thriller” promised.

It begins promisingly enough, framed within a recording of a supernatural podcast, where Sammie (Steele) recounts a fateful family holiday to the Isle of Skye. The darkened auditorium and big screen projection of Sammie’s testimony create a compelling intimacy.

It was a beach day like any other, she explains, until she and her siblings caught sight of their father across the sands, but he died four years ago. Unsupervised by a drunken single mother, she and brother, Bron, set out to discover what’s going on. Is their dad alive? Has he got something to do with the seemingly driverless silver car they keep running into? Is he the phantom car driver of Skye, or has their alcoholic mother been lying to them?

At first, Steele creates every character: her bullishly male brother, wayward twin sister, and innocent younger brother, Sammy. At some point, Robinson joins the effort, mostly wearing Bron’s testosterone-fuelled obstinacy. They work well together, and if Sammie’s twin-sister and their mother are notable by their flimsy characterisation, Annie, Bron and Sammy become familiar presences on stage.

No one but Sammy is particularly likeable or distinct in their personality, but the mystery is well enough set up, thanks to some pacey direction and a few timely sound effects.

It’s once the hunt for their dead father begins, and the domestic melodrama erupts that matters slow considerably. There’s just so much intrafamily bickering that goes pretty much nowhere, except to establish Bron’s violence-prone nature, Annie as a fairly passive observer, and Sammie as the only source of joy in any of their lives.

“No one but Sammy is particularly likeable or distinct in their personality, but the mystery is well enough set up, thanks to some pacey direction, and a few timely sound effects.”

Formula BedTime, the game he and Bron (or Annie, if Bron isn’t available) play before bedtime, sounds cracking.

Once, however, our three fully-fleshed heroes head down to the pub to hunt down their dad, the play’s terminal destination becomes so obvious, I was positive I was being wrong-footed. This was not the case.

When the ‘mystery’ is revealed, it’s just depressing, nothing else – and once we know the shape of the tale the podcaster was expecting from Annie, it’s hard to imagine why anyone thought it was a ghost story worth podcasting about, and not just a grim story of child abuse and criminal negligence.

So whilst this production has many admirable qualities, it lacks the critical quality needed by a thriller: thrills.