A Slow Air

In A Slow Air, middle-aged Morna is instantly dislikeable, brash, harsh and inconsiderate, she celebrates being the centre of her small life and asks few questions about anyone else's. Her estranged brother Athol meanwhile, is warm and lost, he seeks community and is happy to celebrate the qualities of others. In trying to unite the two, Morna's son crashes into his uncle's life bringing with him his own immature understanding of politics, multiculturalism and a creepy occupation with the Glasgow airport bombers of 2007.

Through alternate monologues, we piece together the events that threw them apart and this is brilliantly effective in allowing each voice to reach its full volume. As the characters can't question each other, it puts the onus on the audience to create a discussion of what happens on stage and in this sense, it is remarkable.

But it also demonstrates that Harrower's use of this format is more interesting than the content of his play. There are issues that jump out at us, incidents that make us ask questions but we're never given any reason to care about these everymen characters, so why should we talk about them afterwards? Still, A Slow Air is undeniably intelligent and witty but it's also, as the title suggest, very slow.