Hugely entertaining theatre the result of rural road trip

“Despite all our achievements, we owe our existence to a sixinch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.”

It is a quote attributed to the Farm Equipment Association of Minnesota and South Dakota, and is the backdrop to the Perth Theatre production of awardwinning writer and performer Kieran Hurley’s new play.

The writer went on a rural road trip with director Lu Kemp, talking to the range of people who work and live on and from the land – from farmers and their kin to immigrants.

The result is a hugely entertaining verbatim piece of theatre that will delight townies and rural folk alike.

We hear from the Scots farmers, the foreign workers, the people who gave up city life to take to the land, the Northern English folks who decided that rural Perthshire was for them.

It is full of pastoral pithiness and a degree of agricultural humour and folkie music – but, encouragingly, it is also full of hope.

Brexit certainly looms large, but there is always an underlying desire to make good. Migrant workers, too, seem to consider their mug of tea is half full rather than half empty. It is quite enlightening listening to their accounts, admirably performed by Melody Grove and Aly Macrae.

As one would expect on a “visit to the farm”, the kettle is on, and the duo are there to welcome you into the auditorium.

What follows in the ensuing hour are the accounts of the interviewees – a change of accent and a pair of spectacles to portray the various characters – interspersed with a song or two (some old, some new).

Hopefully, the playwright will find some time to add a few more inches to the script – such delights deserve more time to savour.

A Six-Inch Layer Of Topsoil And The Fact It Rains continues on its road trip tomorrow until Saturday, taking in Blair Atholl, Alyth, Blairgowrie and Kinross.