Question: How are we supposed to treat others?
Answer: There are no others.
Ramana Maharishi
This was the third Grid Iron commission from the Edinburgh International Festival following Variety in 2002 and Leaving Planet Earth in 2013. It was by far the most successful commission to date, bringing together a diverse company of eight actors backed by a vast production, creative and technical team combining professionals with students from Leith Academy. 101 people were employed by the production.
Imagining an Edinburgh ten years from now, where the citizens of Scotland face an imminent tsunami-type event and need to urgently flee (with Finland being the only country willing to take them), the audience and characters are cast as climate refugees in a school repurposed as a processing centre. Using and subverting the public information rhetoric of the Covid years, the text was created by Ben as lead writer with sections written by Nicola McCartney, Tawona Sithole and Uma Raja Nada, bringing their fresh and distinctive voices into the Grid Iron mix. A variety of spaces within Leith Academy were used, including the swimming pool for one of Ben’s sections, ‘Inflatable’, which imagines three teenagers on a summer holiday in Fife in a scorchingly hot summer, with their inflatable boat doubling in the second half as their vessel to escape Scotland a year later on discovering that the official transports are full. The show looked at all the class divisions and inequality plaguing our contemporary society and the devastating effects of these divisions only a few years into the future. The production was widely acclaimed and sold out several months before its opening. It was nominated for a CATS Award for Best Technical Presentation.
the experience is undeniably harrowing, although not without its moments of humour; and every detail is driven along by a powerful, often menacing score by David Paul Jones, and meticulously delivered by a creative and production team of more than 100 people, including writer-director Ben Harrison and fellow writers Nicola McCartney, Uma Nada-Raja and Tawona Sithole, and a superb eight-strong professional cast.
Muster Station: Leith makes a convincing job of turning abstract hypothesis into tangible experience. A few more steps down our apocalyptic road and this is what it could be like...it demonstrates in a visceral and unsettling way something of the forces, both political and meterological, we are up against.
The acting of those involved was extraordinary...Together they brought to life some of the most endearing, frustrating, incredibly human characters I've ever witnessed. That credit also goes to a team of writers who were unafraid to create characters that were charismatic whilst being flawed and even unlikeable at points...Their work provided numerous poignant and gripping moments. It was an exhilarating journey from scene to scene....Muster Station: Leith was a thoroughly gripping experience. True escapism and an unfiltered exploration of human nature.
As our world builds up borders, our theatres endeavour to tear down walls. Pioneering site-specific theatre company, Grid Iron continue to see such barriers and rip them apart.
Site-specific theatre at its best...this is brilliant work form writers Nicola McCartney, Tawona Sithole, Uma Nada-Raja and Ben Harrison. Even as the cold hand of fear clutches at your heart, it's funny. It's technically sci-fi- in as much as this is a vision of the not-too-distant future - but the story's told in such an eminently believable way that calling it sci-fi is too dismissive. The writers have done their research and skitter from one terrible consequence of climate change to another with barely a pause for breath. And the story is woven through with a fascinating eye on equality spun around the centuries old question: in the event of disaster, who deserves to be saved? Muster Station grabs you by the throat and then laughs in your face at your foolish optimism that things might have turned out better. It's no wonder that the show has already sold out.
unnerving and compelling...The various stages of processing and immersive dramatic scenarios highlight the chaotic, dehumanising experience of displacement and evacuation. This feels like a wake-up call to complacency around the comfort of life in the UK and the lasting legacy of colonialism. However, hope and human connection emerge throughout each scene offering a balance of tone...a balance of intense drama interspersed with comic moments...This is a rare opportunity to surrender your imagination to this unique theatre experience.
