A Slow Air

Morna works as a cleaner in Edinburgh. She spends her time drinking, attempting affairs and trying to work out the mind of the twenty-year-old son with whom she shares her flat. Her elder brother, Athol, lives near Glasgow airport with his wife. The owner of a floor-tiling company, with two grown-up children, he's proud of his hard-won achievements since moving west. Between them, they have differing memories of their upbringing and their parents and definite opinions about each other. But these are left unsaid because Morna and Athol haven't spoken a word to each other in fourteen years . . . When Morna's son Joshua travels to see his uncle, he sets off a remarkable and life-changing series of events. A Slow Air by David Harrower premiered at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow, in April 2011, and transferred to the Traverse Theatre as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

David Harrower's plays include Knives in Hens, Kill the Old, Torture Their Young, Dark Earth (Traverse Theatre), Presence (Royal Court) The Chrysalids (NT Connections), Blackbird (Edinburgh International Festival; West End), A Slow Air (Tron Theatre, Glasgow), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, adapted from the novel by Muriel Spark, (Donmar). Adaptations include Büchner's Woyzeck (Edinburgh Lyceum), Chekhov's Ivanov and Horváth's Tales from the Vienna Woods (National Theatre), Schiller's Mary Stuart (National Theatre of Scotland), and Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, Brecht's The Good Soul of Szechuan and Gogol's The Government Inspector (Young Vic). Film credits: Una; Outlaw King.