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The Burns Project

The Georgian House, Edinburgh

Four stars

 

The sins of rhyme, as Robert Burns calls his craft in this new dramatisation of the bard’s words, have much to answer for. Burns himself was an all too familiar bundle of contradictions in his output. On the one hand, he had a common touch that tapped into the collective consciousness enough to take poetry into the mainstream. On the other, his feckless shagabout ways left much domestic mess in his wake. This is before the one about the slave trade the cash-strapped people’s poet almost signs up with to help escape his lot.

 

All of this and more is addressed in James Clements’ hour long compendium of words and music which returns to the Georgian House’s Robert Adam designed Edinburgh New Town des-res in the run up to Burns Night following last year’s Fringe run and recent tour. With the audience seated the length of a dinner table laid out with all the accoutrements, the traditional Burnsian gathering is duly upended by Clements’ playful presentation of material sourced from assorted letters from Burns’ archive.

 

In Cora Bissett’s slyly inventive production presented by the National Trust for Scotland, what is already an impressive presentation by Clements as he regales the audience with yarns from Burns’ life and times is fleshed out into something more all encompassing. This is done first by Lisa Rigby’s live guitar and shruti box renditions of some of his greatest hits that accompany and illustrate the action. These are punctuated at points by a collage of criss-crossing recorded voices relaying a series of real life and often conflicting opinions on the great man.

 

Then – ingeniously – designer Jenny Booth’s table becomes a mini stage in itself to accompany Burns’ assorted declamations. With a lightning bolt scar lit by Elle Taylor’s multi coloured neon running the length of the table, the ghost white crockery at one point serves up a Salome like main course. Be sure as well to keep your eye on the gravy boat in an increasingly fevered affair that goes beyond tourist trappings to make for something altogether more unexpected. 


The Herald, January 19th 2026

 

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