The question of how the island of Ireland would approach, vote and handle the result of an Irish unity referendum is centre stage of the Edinburgh Fringe.
Written by Philip Catherwood, The Pitch follows Robbie (played by James Grimm), a sports-mad Belfast boy.
When his favourite pitch is refurbished into a Gaelic football ground, he sees it as an invasion of his culture. But for GAA player Deren (Jake Douglas), it's a chance to play the sport he loves, in the home where it was never accepted. As Robbie's sister, Melissa (Dion Di Maio), starts playing Gaelic football in school, and a united Ireland referendum looms, can all three of them find common ground?
The story both celebrates the country's favourite sport and asks the growing question: will Ireland ever be re-unified?
As they interact, you see all three either rejecting or conforming to their parents ideal. You also see them learning how to live with each other when they enjoy each others company, while disagreeing on this horribly divisive question.
Robbie is joining the protests that his Dad is organising against the GAA club. He's also arguing that change which will come with a united Ireland will be too much for the communities of east Belfast to bare. He's scared and doesn't want his world to be any different.
At one point Deren tells him: "We could be part of something that we used to call home".
"It's not my home," Robbie replies disgruntled, telling Deren that Unionists would be marginalised in a united Ireland.
The play carefully and impactfully explores the heavy topics, all the way to the Troubles, and comes back again to keep it light, telling of a fictional Irish unity debate ahead of the vote which descended into the silliness us Scots are all too familiar of: Which Mr Tayto they would keep in the event of re-unification?
The writing profoundly emulates how teenagers discuss this. Of young people growing up and hearing the narrative around them while developing critical thinking and going with their gut. Of how they are thinking about the future they will grow up in much more than older generations think they are, and the fear of change they feel which radiates down through media.
It brilliantly explores ostracization based on your political beliefs as well as grief and sexuality.
I don't think there are many places outside of Ireland, north and south, that can relate to the referendum element of this play more than Scotland.
For a majority Scottish audience watching the characters play out the morning after the result came in (Ireland is united), it brought back the emotions of our own result morning in 2014 and gave us a glimpse of what could have been.
They watch the sun come up over a Belfast which is no longer the capital. They drink and sing with Saint Patrick hats on. They see the smoke rising from protests and cars on fire. They fight and argue, those sore from defeat now against those cheering with ecstasy.
There were some tears in the audience when, in the small room with only a Gaelic football and spraypainted goal posts behind them, Robbie and Deren make amends on the pitch it all started on, not wanting to waste any more time arguing about the future which is so much bigger then them and enjoy the time they are living in.
Wouldn't that be nice?
All three performance are fantastic, with brilliant comedic timing as well as incredibly sincere delivery.
What The Pitch does is be honest about how unity would not erase grief, fear or division overnight.
It shows the next generation a future in which they will inherit traumas but are still able to choose empathy, friendship and a future bigger than the borders which exist around them today.
For a Scottish audience in 2026 especially, it was a reminder that constitutional change is all about the people asked to live together the morning after and will belong to the young people asked to inherit it, so they may as well start talking to one another now.
