On a glorious summer’s day in rural Perthshire in 2014, an extended family sit down to eat dinner and talk politics. It is just weeks before Scotland will vote no to independence, by 55% to 45%, in a referendum that may be era-defining or a historical footnote – just one of thehpuzzles of perspective posed by award-winning playwright Peter Arnott in his latest work Group Portrait in a Summer Landscape.
The friends and relatives of eminent professor of history George Rennie – a prominent Labour supporter who is leaning towards voting yes – are ultra-liberal, well-educated and well-fed. But as the characters reach their dramatic, wine-accelerated reckoning, the play is as much about that political moment, what it meant then and how it resonates today.
