Laurel lives in a tiny mountain town in Tennessee. One of those sleepy secluded towns where you don’t need to lock your front door. But one day, she returns to her grandmother’s house to find an unwanted guest. Her mum, Denise, has served 18 years – the length of her daughter’s life – in prison for the murder of her uncle and now she’s looking for somewhere to stay.

‘Shake Rag Hollow’ is a brand new play by US writer, Arlene Hutton. The script is carefully sculpted, economically sketching the strained-to-breaking-point and beyond relationship between these three women, tied together by blood and apparently torn apart by pills, addiction and a succession of broken promises. But the story’s as twisty-turny as the Shakerag Hollow trail itself and that’s part of the thrill of this production.

The other treat is the gripping performances. Hutton is Grandma, bearing all of her failed hopes and dreams heavily as far as Laurel’s concerned with the planned weekend trip to Dollywood a moment of frivolity in a life steeped in books and academic study. Sofia Ayral-Hutton‘s Laurel is gently spiky, resentful but as restrained as a well-brought up girl might be, cautiously sweetly hopeful as she starts to believe that her mum might stick around this time. And Dana Brooke as Denise carries the combined weight of her daughter and her mother’s expectations with a quiet resignation, making the unfolding events all the more touching.

If you’re a fan of a trigger warning, this play needs several. The story’s tough stuff and director Eric Nightengale wrings every drop of emotion out of this family’s relationships. And yet it’s a story full of hope, tribute to the ruination a person can wreak but equally, the salvation.

‘Shake Rag Hollow‘ is at Assembly Rooms – Front Room until Sun 24 Aug 2025 at 14:10