With Mark Rylance dominating the West End with Jerusalem and its allusions to the English countryside, the Finborough brings us The Straw Chair a picture of life on a tiny Scottish island in the late 1700s.  The most interesting inhabitant is Lady Rachel Grange (Siobhan Redmond) who claims she has been imprisoned on Hirta, the largest island in the St Kilda group, by her husband Lord Grange. 

Lady Rachel Erskine of Grange was a real person who lived in Edinburgh and who stalked her husband after he ended the marriage.  What I wonder is whether without the history of this women being written by powerful men related to Clan MacLeod, Lord of the Isles, whether she might be given a fairer hearing in the 21st century. 

The MacLeods of course were on the side of the English at the ’45 Rebellion but Lady Grange claims to have evidence that her husband was a Jacobite, a supporter of James Francis Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender and Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young Pretender and grandson of King James II of England and VIIth of Scotland, who was deposed and replaced by William III of Orange and his wife Mary II.   This would be an act of treason punishable by death and confiscation of land and property.

A missionary minister Aneas (Finlay Bain) has been sent to Hirta to do “God’s work” to ensure the Christianity of the population who have heathen tendencies.  He and his newly married wife Isabel (Rori Hawthorn) are stuck there for about four months when the boat will come back for them.  Isabel’s first reaction to the furnishings, a bed made of stone and an old straw chair is to want to catch the boat straight back to the mainland. 

The inhabitants of Hirta speak Gaellc which Isabel does not understand but of course Rachel speaks English.  We first meet Lady Grange when she appears to take back the Straw Chair, “This chair is mine”, she claims assertively.  Later she says the diet is disgusting with addled goose eggs and gannet meat.  Oona the maid and captor for Rachel talks about an ancient god and spirits that the islanders believe in.  Oona says of Rachel that she is, “. . . like a great Skua bird, you cannot get rid of.”