The Flouers O’Edinburgh, Finborough Theatre

September at The Finborough Theatre is set to be a thoroughly Scottish affair, fitting in with the political climate that also brings Rona Munro's celebrated James Plays to the National Theatre. 

The Finborough will stage four separate plays as part of the month long “Scotland Decides/Tha Alba a'taghadh” season set to overlap with the Scottish Independence Referendum on Thursday 18th September. These plays include The Wallace, Jock: Scotland on Trial and The Little Red Hen, but the highlight of the season is set to be The Flouers O’Edinburgh by Robert McLellan. 

The playwright

Robert McLellan was a famous Scottish playwright who dedicated his life to writing in Scots dialect, having been influenced by the Scottish Literary Renaissance and the living language of areas in which he grew up. He was extremely proud of Scotland’s linguistic heritage and wrote numerous radio plays and poems of lyrical beauty, as well as a consummate history of the Isle of Arran, the Gaelic-speaking island which he made his home in 1938.  Most of McLellan’s early work was produced and performed in Glasgow but his 1936 masterpiece Jamie the Saxt eventually received its English premiere at The Finborough in 2007. 

The play

McLellan’s national pride is as entrenched in the plot of The Flouers O'Edinburgh as it is in the language. Set in Edinburgh in the mid 18th century, the repercussions of the 1707 Act of Union are seen through the eyes of Girzie Carmichael and her niece, Kate, whose idiotic fiancé insists she speak in English while she staunchly refuses to give up her Scots dialect. The political animosity between England and Scotland is played out in the lovers’ linguistic dilemma, and McLellan’s script aptly mirrors the tension in our own times over the outcome of the Referendum. The Finborough production will be directed by Jennifer Bakst, an international director skilled in translating dramatic texts, and has a suitably Scottish cast including Finlay Bain, Leigh Lothian and Miranda Menzies.