Interviews: Amy Liptrot and Stef Smith

You wait eight years for an adaptation of The Outrun and then two come along at once. Discussions for turning Amy Liptrot’s memoir into screen and stage adaptations began a year after the book was first published in 2016. The Outrun, which recounts Liptrot’s journey to sobriety on Orkney, was a bestseller upon release, shortlisted for major literary awards and hailed as ‘revelation’ by the Guardian for its fresh, accessible approach to nature writing. 

“Before The Outrun, there wasn’t anything like The Outrun,” observes Stef Smith who has written the stage adaptation of Liptrot’s book. Smith was introduced to The Outrun when she took part in Playing with Books, a joint venture between the Royal Lyceum Theatre and the Edinburgh International Book Festival. “[The book] was unlike anything I had encountered before,” says Smith. “It felt like a fresh conversation about Scotland. The way it portrays a modern relationship with nature felt exciting.”

Smith’s introduction to The Outrun in 2017 was the beginning of the journey (interrupted by Covid-19) of bringing the stage adaptation to the Edinburgh International Festival where it will have its premiere this year. At the same time, a film adaptation was also being made; a similarly long process which has resulted in the film having its UK premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival – also in August.

“We thought [the play] would be out long before the movie!” says Smith. “But I think it’s only a good thing. I haven’t seen the film, but it looks like we’ve taken different journeys with the book, so I’m only excited. I’m aware of the intensity it must bring for Amy, but I think it’s great that her story is getting out because it has spoken to so many people through the years.” 

Although The Outrun was published in 2016, Liptrot began writing her memoir over 10 years ago. “The book was written in my early 30s and now I’m in my 40s,” says Liptrot. She’s speaking from the Orcadian island Papay where much of The Outrun takes place. “It’s like I’ve stepped back into my life from 10 years ago, talking about the book again and living in the place where it was written about but in different circumstances. It’s sort of a decade-long circle completed.”

While Smith adapted the theatrical version of The Outrun, Liptrot co-wrote the film adaptation. “I didn’t have the bandwidth to approach the material from different directions,” says Liptrot. “It would have driven me insane!” Liptrot wrote the film with the writer-director Nora Fingscheidt. “Nora totally immersed herself in Orcadian culture,” says Liptrot. “She was even listening to Radio Orkney in Los Angeles.” 

In the film, Liptrot’s name is changed to Rona and she’s played by Saoirse Ronan, while in the stage show, she’s played by Isis Hainsworth and given no name. “It was one of the first decisions Nora and I made,” says Liptrot on the film’s name change. “We could talk about ‘she’ and that freed me up to think of the writing as a work of art.” Although that didn’t stop the strangeness of watching Ronan play her younger self. “It was the most bizarre thing to see this huge professional team with all their vehicles and equipment recreating parts of my life. Watching Saoirse Ronan gathering driftwood off the beach, I started thinking she was doing a better job of it than I ever did. She’s much more convincing in the role!’

Both the stage and film versions of The Outrun have taken some creative licence with Liptrot’s story, much of which is told through intimate narration. “It’s not an easy book to adapt because there isn’t much dialogue,” says Liptrot. “But Nora came up with an Orkney layer, a London layer, and a third layer that we ended up calling the “nerd layer”. The natural world, island life, folklore stuff in the book is presented using some voiceover and different kinds of archive footage and animation. Her approach to the adaptation really clicked with me because it felt true to the spirit of the book.”

“It was a brilliant challenge to have,” Smith says about her own approach to making the memoir visual. “One of the other things that really drew me to the book was that there was no clear way to adapt it. It wasn’t a copy and paste job. I think the fact we had to wrestle with the book a bit to find its theatrical moments only excited me further.”

Smith had the additional challenge of representing Orkney on a stage. The Orcadian writer and musician Luke Sutherland’s score was the key to bringing the islands to life. “Sometimes our understanding of places is beyond words,” says Smith. “[Sutherland] has created this epic, experiential composition that holds the ancientness and beauty and brutality of Orkney in a way that I don’t know if a script can do. I feel very much in awe of and in conversation with the work he’s doing with the play. I hope it feels like you can’t separate the sonic world and the written world.”

With its majority Scottish creative team, Smith is delighted the stage adaptation will have its world premiere in Edinburgh. “Theatre audiences in Scotland are very awake and generous and ready for theatre,’ she says. For Liptrot who was a student in Edinburgh – and a past writer for Fest – it’s another full circle moment. “It’s a thrill for me to be across the different festivals, after being involved as a reviewer and always loving Edinburgh in August.”

Stef Smith's production of The Outrun is at the Church Hill Theatre, 31 Jul-24 Aug as part of EIF. The film starring Saoirse Ronan premieres at the Cameo on 15 Aug as part of EIFF. Amy Liptrot & Stef Smith appear at the EIBF on 18 Aug.