Overflowing with raw emotion and intense lyricism, Stef Smith’s reimagining of Amy Liptrot’s award-winning memoir, The Outrun, has moments of tender beauty but lacks the wild harshness of Orkney.

Despite being released back in 2016, Liptrot’s story about her return home to the Scottish archipelago while recovering from a decade of alcoholism has seen a sudden surge in interest over this past year. Smith’s stage adaptation is one of three festival appearances of the work in Edinburgh this August, with the author appearing at the Edinburgh Book Festival and a film adaptation starring Saoirse Ronan premiering at the Edinburgh International Film Festival later this month. In this theatrical interpretation premiering at the Edinburgh International Festival, we follow Isis Hainsworth’s unnamed protagonist as she finds herself longing for the place that she was so desperate to escape from.

At only 90-minutes long, the play has the difficult task of condensing the protagonist’s formative years (her late teens, time at university, and gradual descent into alcoholism in the clubs of south London) in a cohesive enough way that can eventually guide her back to the “edge of the Earth”. Unfortunately, these moments feel rushed in spite of taking up the first hour, and her first major heartbreak – which leads her into an even greater spiral – has little emotional pull.

Nevertheless, Hainsworth captures her audiences’ attention and hearts as she delivers Smith’s punchy yet poetic script. Staying faithful to the source material’s nature-writing genre, The Outrun is filled with similes that conjure the natural wonders of the Scottish Isles, celebrating its terrain and wildlife. Smith’s frequent use of alliteration is delivered by Hainsworth in a way that is hypnotic, ebbing and flowing like gentle waves. Her words are occasionally echoed by the chorus onstage, whose presence at times helps reflect the protagonist’s spiralling pattern. For a story that focus so much on the protagonist’s feelings of isolation, too often the stage is crowded, the chorus’ presence a distraction.

While the chorus’ presence reflect Smith and Vicky Featherstone’s ambitious take on the source material, it also hints at the problems with this production. There are just too many elements. Interwoven into the narrative and Hainsworth’s running monologue are a number of folk-inspired refrains that are reminiscent of Amy Draper and Finn Mathieson’s 2019 Fringe musical, Islander. While beautiful, they’re yet another distraction from the power of Liptrot’s vulnerability and resilience. A stripped-back version featuring only Luke Sutherland’s yearning score would have been just as, if not more, effective.

Ultimately, what this rendition of The Outrun lacks is the wildness of the Scottish Isles in all its beauty and brutality. While the rocky set and projected images of rock faces, sea foam, and lichen are meant to bridge the two worlds together, they feel too static and artificial. A main character in its own right, the Orkney at the heart of Liptrot’s work is not the same one found here.