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A Toast Fae the Lassies

Pitlochry Festival Theatre

Four stars

 

Everyone wants a piece of Robert Burns, from haggis toasting fanboys to those who see out Hogmanay around the world with a chorus of Auld Lang Syne. In the latter case this is sometimes without realising who penned Burns’ rousing community singalong. But what of those who were the main inspiration for Burns’ lusty canon? What have they got to say about the pop star poet’s shagabout ways that left them high, dry and sometimes holding the baby?

 

This is a question posited in John Binnie’s new play, in which Burns’ mum, Agnes Broun, his much put upon wife Jean Armour, and writer’s moll Clarinda, aka Agnes McLehose, 

accidentally meet at the great man’s graveside to pay tribute on the first anniversary of his death in 1797. As they role-play key moments in their respective lives and times with Burns, the three women find common ground through their very different experiences.

 

Binnie and musical arranger Alyson Orr’s collaboration is an intelligently scripted and cannily realised construction, brought to life in Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s studio space by a glorious trinity of women. As Orr as Agnes, Stephanie Cremona as Jean and Eden Barrie as Clarinda transform some of the bard’s greatest hits into a series of three-part harmony led numbers, the result in Binnie’s own production is a kind of girl band dead poet’s society. 

 

Accompanied on acoustic guitar by musician Chris Coxon, the songs are delivered with a collective clarity that brings a contemporary energy to literary history a la hit musical, Six. With Coxon hanging around the stage with his guitar like the ghost of poets past, as the three women raise a glass to their dearly departed while dancing on his grave, Burns’ legacy is set in stone in a show that could seduce audiences till a’ the seas gang dry.


The Herald, September 6th 2025

 

Ends

 

 

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