Further than the Furthest Thing

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Irregular adjectives are one of those exceptions, but even more solid rules are open for interpretation. To find out more about comparative and superlative adjectives, read “ Clearer or More Clear: Understanding Proper Usage” to know which rules apply when. Towards the end of the first half, the island’s volcano erupts, which sets up the much stronger second half. Here the islanders have been relocated to England, working in one of Hansen’s factories. It’s not a life they enjoy: ‘puddings and the Queen and football matches and puddings’ sighs Mill of early ’60s Britain. Set in one of the world’s most remote inhabited islands, Tristan da Cunha, “Further than the Furthest Thing” tells the tale of four residents who are forced to integrate into modern society against their will. It is loosely based on a historic volcanic eruption in 1961, which resulted in the evacuation of Tristan da Cunha inhabitants to mainland England. Inspired by her mother’s tales of a childhood spent on the island, playwright Zinnie Harris seeks to explore the sense of belonging within a remote community and the islander identity in this play. A deeply moving Jenna Russell, taking a break from her storied musicals career, has the focal role of the islander Mill. We first encounter this sweet-voiced Scotswoman and her husband Bill (Cyril Nri) out in the remote climes of the South Atlantic archipelago of Tristan da Cunha, though the location is never specified in the script.

Francis reunites with his sweetheart Rebecca (Kirsty Rider) and discovers that she has become pregnant in his absence. We learn that she had been raped by sailors and does not want to keep the baby. Although technically all are correct, since “furthest” is a flexible term, three of the answers refer to physical distances, which you can express with “farthest.”

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Bill is strongly against the idea of a factory on the island, but promises not to publicly oppose it in an island meeting which Francis has called, in exchange for which he asks Francis to swim in the lake where he had felt the tremors. Francis is shown meeting with Rebecca Rodgers, with whom he had been in love before he left, and discovers that she has become pregnant in his absence. Mill and Mr Hansen visit the location where Mr Hansen plans to build his factory, of which Mill has become strongly supportive. Bill and Francis join them, and Francis tells them that, after swimming in the lake, he no longer wishes the factory to be built; following his opposition, it was voted down in the island meeting. With all these definitions and distinctions, it is easy to see why “further” is most likely to be the correct form in your writing. However, we can break it down further. Irregular Adjectives Zinnie Harris’s Further than the Furthest Thing play follows an island community who face up to their past. They’ve lived peacefully for centuries, avoiding modern developments and a way of life that could corrupt their existence. But in 1961, a native outsider disrupts all ties to the land. What could happen when the “H’outside world” take over? In a play all about home and community, Further than the Furthest Thing shows what it means to support one another. In a four-star review on London Theatre, "[the play] exists within the context of larger, impersonal forces — colonial misrule, for one thing — that flavours a play that may seem elusive at first but coalesces in the mind after the fact."

Part of that Vesuvian mix was Zinnie Harris’s acclaimed second play, Further than the Furthest Thing. First seen in August 2000, it’s inspired by Tristan da Cunha, the South Atlantic UK Overseas Territory described as the world’s most remote inhabited archipelago. In 1961, its volcanic peak erupted, and its several hundred islanders got evacuated temporarily to England. Just such a scenario happens here but, as Harris explains, “I stole the real Tristan da Cunha to feed my imagination”. Like Harrower, Harris does not romanticise a way of life that is harsh and unforgiving but, in the abrupt shift of location between her two acts, she captures a yearning sense of what we have sacrificed (community, belonging, landscape) in the name of progress. In a story based on the experiences of her own family, she gives voice to that which is lost when two countrymen can no longer talk to each other without first making an appointment. Another definition of “further” in its adjectival form indicates something more or a higher level. “Farther” is not applicable in this scenario. It’s 1961, and a volcanic eruption displaces this remote populace to the comparative bustle of Southampton, where we find ourselves after the interval — an incident that actually happened to this one-time British dependency. What transpires is an empathically imagined investigation into what we mean by “home”, folded into an often-grim parable of acculturation.Drawing on the memories of her own mother, Zinnie Harris based her play on the experience of the inhabitants of Tristan da Cunha, the British overseas territory in the South Atlantic, who in 1961 escaped a volcanic eruption, moving first to Cape Town and then to England. The islanders were discouraged from returning home by being told, wrongly, that their homes had been utterly destroyed. The ploy did not work.

Harris was inspired to pen Further than the Furthest Thing to keep her mother's memories alive — she lived on Tristan da Cunha. ZINNIE Harris’ award-winning play about an isolated community, first produced in 1999, is given an atmospheric revival by Jennifer Tang. Set on the remote volcanic island, Tristan da Cunha, a British Overseas Territory, it’s based on real events. Naomi Preston-Low completes the cast as the hapless Rebecca, well-pregnant with an ill-conceived baby. There’s a rambling quality to the first half, which sets the play up as a showdown between salt-of-the-earth islanders and the sharp-suited representative of Big Jar. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther . . .The play premiered at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in August, 2000, winning the Peggy Ramsay Award, the John Whiting Award and an Edinburgh Fringe First Award and is now regarded as a modern classic. On a remote island in the middle of the South Atlantic tremors disturb the surface of the volcanic lake, but the small population are more concerned with matters above ground. An outsider wants to build a factory that he says will bring work and prosperity to the whole community. However, not everyone agrees and some question his real motives? Behind this other, darker secrets lie concealed, waiting to erupt and blow the community and their way of life apart. The easiest definition of “farther” is that it is an adjective that indicates space or distance between two objects. As we have discussed previously, space or distance has to be something measurable or physical. Let’s test your knowledge again. Read the sentences below and decide if “farthest” is correct in each context.