A stark and elemental new theatre form makes its Scottish debut with a tale of sea, song and obsession.
This September, Scottish audiences will encounter a form of theatre that asks them to step inside the circle. Contemporary Ritual Theatre (CRT), a company founded in Great Yarmouth in 2022, is bringing its production Salt to Scotland for the first time. Following a sell-out run in East Anglia and London, the play will tour coastal communities between Shetland and Findhorn, tracing the historical migration route of the herring.
Written and directed by CRT’s founder Beau Hopkins, Salt is described as a “visceral folk tragedy” steeped in sea shanties, hymns, dances and folklore. Set in 1770 on the East Norfolk coast, it tells the story of Billy, a devout young fisherman, his domineering mother Widow Pruttock, and Sheldis, a singer whose supernatural gifts prove both magnetic and destructive. Their lives, already precarious and shaped by faith and the herring harvest, are thrown into turmoil.
A Circle of Transformation
What distinguishes CRT’s work is its staging. Rather than a traditional set, the performance takes place within a circle of heavy ship’s rope, the audience gathered close around the action. Hopkins explains: “What I mean by ritual theatre is a form of theatre where performers and audience share a transformative experience. Something you’ll remember, something that leaves you changed. The magic of the circle shape is that it connects everyone equally. By arranging the audience in a ring around the rope, we keep them emotionally and imaginatively closer, both to the action on stage and to each other.”
The company’s ethos is about maximising that proximity. Hopkins adds: “The essence of theatre, what makes it different from other art forms, is the physical presence of actors and spectators in a shared space. We try to maximise the power and imaginative potential of this relationship. When it works, the memory of being part of that circle lingers far longer than the play itself.”
Authentic objects — bones, baskets, nets, stones — and improvised music help shape the atmosphere. Hopkins explains: “It’s an essential part of the play to use authentic props like bones and fishing baskets, because these create the textures that heighten the imaginative engagement of the audience with the play.”
““What I mean by ritual theatre is a form of theatre where performers and audience share a transformative experience.”
Beau Hopkins
Following the Herring
The decision to tour Scotland was shaped by geography as much as logistics. Salt follows the migration of the herring northwards, and so too does the tour: opening in Shetland on 5 September, before travelling to Wick, Perth, Paisley and Findhorn.
Hopkins says the landscape and the rhythm of fishing were key to shaping the drama: “The play takes place among reed fields, on the beach, in the dunes, in the marram grass, in the marshes behind the foreshore. Also the seasonal cycle of the fishing is essential to the rhythm of life the play embodies. Whenever men went to sea, there was a tremendous amount of uncertainty whether they would ever return. That uncertainty marks the lives of all the characters.”
One strand of the narrative is rooted in that loss. “The main character’s father went to sea and never returned. That event hangs over the family,” Hopkins notes. “So when we were shaping the tour, we knew we wanted to go to communities where this landscape and rhythm of life had shaped people’s history. We felt the play would resonate most strongly there.”
Folk Songs and Dark Forces
At its heart, Salt is a folk tragedy, where everyday lives are entangled with supernatural forces. Hopkins wanted to avoid topical commentary in favour of elemental storytelling: “I didn’t want to create a play that asked audiences to have an opinion about a topic in the headlines. I wanted to create an experience which encapsulated a journey from birth to death. Folklore is one of the greatest forms for telling the whole story of life… Folktales are full of darkness and light, and they show humanity along the whole arc of the journey, encompassing love and jealousy and every possible passion in between.”
Music is central. Hopkins reflects: “Among fishing communities, people used to know dozens, if not hundreds, of songs by heart. They would sing them while working, while celebrating, as a family, on ships, while completing all the ordinary tasks of survival. Songs are a window into the souls of communities and individuals who otherwise lack a ready language to express their inner lives.”
That interplay of music and folklore was, for Hopkins, the natural language of the piece: “Wanting to create a visceral and elemental mode of theatre, one where sea and magic are active forces and where music and song are woven into the story, pairs naturally with the world of folktales and folklore.”
Between Faith and Fear
The drama hinges on the triangle between Billy, his mother and Sheldis, the singer who unsettles their world. Hopkins found the process of writing characters bound by faith and fear both challenging and rewarding: “Salt takes place in a world whose governing forces are God, the sea, the earth, magic, the supernatural and superstition. It was incredibly exciting to imagine characters governed by these forces. By writing at that distance, I found where their humanity resonated most deeply.”
Billy’s obsession with Sheldis, and Widow Pruttock’s terror that he has been bewitched, reflect that clash of belief and desire. Hopkins adds: “Folklore dramatises insights from the perspective of ordinary people, in a world where people interact with nature, spirits, and the supernatural. These forces are terrifying, but they’re also the frame through which people understood love, fear and longing.”
“I didn’t want to create a play that asked audiences to have an opinion about a topic in the headlines. I wanted to create an experience which encapsulated a journey from birth to death.”
Beau Hopkins
Influences and Comparisons
Salt has already drawn critical comparisons. The Reviews Hub described it as “If Shakespeare, Ken Loach and Nick Cave went on a day trip to Great Yarmouth.” Hopkins sees why: “The quote captures the heightened poetic language the play uses, as well as the social historical element of its setting among fishing communities, and the use of folk songs to express a brutal and visceral world.”
He credits Shakespeare as a lifelong influence, but also points to Scottish writing: “Another very important influence when I was imagining the world of Salt was the Scottish playwright David Harrower, whose play Knives and Hens I think is one of the greatest plays of the last 30 years.”
Ritual and Memory
CRT’s ethos is that theatre should be transformative, uniting audience and performers in a shared act of ritual. Hopkins is clear about what he hopes audiences will carry away: “What I hope people will take away is an unforgettable memory of how their own imagination can transform them. Of being taken into a world which feels so completely different at first, but being able to recognise within it some of the darkness and the light and the sorrow and the joy that animates every human life. Above all, we want to leave people with goosebumps and an unforgettable memory of a night at the theatre.”
For Hopkins, that transformation lies in memory as much as in performance: “The circle, the songs, the bones and nets — they work together to create a world that feels distant, but one you can still recognise. The point is not to escape reality, but to see your own humanity reflected through a different lens.”
Salt on Scotland’s Shores
By touring coastal communities, Salt will meet audiences on their own ground, in places where fishing and song have shaped local culture for centuries. The staging is bare, yet the textures are many: sea shanties, hymns, improvised music, and the physical presence of the actors, right at the audience’s elbow.
Ultimately, Hopkins sees this tour as an act of kinship as much as performance: “We want to bring out some of those incredibly powerful and rich traditions that have shaped coastal and fishing communities in Scotland. The tour is designed to honour that connection.”
Featured Image: SALT Contemporary Ritual Theatre Photo credit Peter Morgan
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