FringeReview Scotland 2025
Low Down
Tim Foley’s lyrical script, Driftwood, examines grief and family relationships as two brothers come together as their father dies. A thoughtful examination of the ties that bind and those that push us away, Driftwood is powerfully staged and performed but ultimately just tries to pack too much in
Review
Flotsam and jetsam… and something else. After a long absence, two brothers come together on the North Sea coast and explore grief, family relationships and… Freeports.
A huge screen acts as backdrop with the sea swirling and roaring, as two characters tumble wave-whipped onto the beach at Seaton Carew. Tiny (James Westerphal) and Mark (Jerome Yates) are brothers: Tiny has never left Seaton Carew and lives at home caring for his dying father while Mark has left the depressed north-east behind for a very different life in Manchester with his boyfriend and a job in events. Although Mark has come home to see his dying father, he cannot bring himself to go to the house and see him.
As the two characters gradually reveal their secrets and resentments, the dialogue and the power shifts between Tiny and Mark, with each tiptoeing round their own needs and truths while avoiding the other’s. Initially there is a humour that masks the pain behind their exchanges which gradually falls away as they share their pain. Tiny (James Westerphal) and Mark (Jerome Yates) create strong individual characters for the brothers as well as a believable dynamic between the two that feels forged from love and hurt.
Tim Foley (former Bruntwood Prize winner) has scripted a beautifully lyric and sensitive play. It skilfully conveys the intensity and complexities of sibling relationships – of knowing each other from childhood to adulthood, of shared childhood experiences and differing adult trajectories. The play has a powerful narrative arc that takes us through the story of the father’s death and its aftermath with each brother communicating – and failing to connect with the other – with their unspoken words hanging heavy in the air. Framing this are two parallel stories, one of an ancient tale of The Mariner who comes into shore to pull the dying back out to sea, the other of dying seashores and the establishment of a Freeport. Unfortunately this is a stretch too far with the Freeport story feeling too much like an add on and not something that is integral to the story.
For the duration of the play, the characters are on the beach, a cold, depressed north east coast beach at Seaton Carew, a place where the long closed steelworks dominate the horizon and where in apocalyptic scenes in recent years vast swathes of dead sea creatures have been washed up. Driftwood is beautifully designed (Lulu Tams, Neil Bettles and Tom Robbins) to reflect this with a cloth backdrop with projections of the sea and distant buildings on the horizon, while all the action takes place on the beach, dark timbers providing a boat like shape around the sand. It provides an intense closed space for the action which adds to the claustrophobic atmosphere. There is much to like about the projections with their changing images of the sea and of the coastline, but there are times when they threaten to overwhelm what is happening on stage. Similarly the text being projected onto the screen are a distraction from the actors speaking the text rather than a useful addition. Charly Dunford’s sound design, mostly backgrounding the power of the sea is balanced and well judged.
All in all, Driftwood has a wonderful lyricism and building tension. It is beautifully realised by directors, Neil Bettles (ThickSkin) and Ellie White (Pentabus) and given voice by the nuanced and sensitive performances of James Westphal and Jerome Yates. Perhaps it just needs to peel back a little, do less and let the central story shine through.
