Festival Previews Video Blog

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It’s such a refreshing change to celebrate Burns by exploring one of the more fundamental influences of his life - his family.  After all, if it weren’t for family, what are we?  As part of the Homecoming Scotland 2009 festivities, members of The Grants Braes Burns Club of East Lothian have uniquely championed the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns with an inspiring  tribute to “The Mother of All Burns”.

Written and directed by the acclaimed BAFTA award winning playwright, Andrew Dallmeyer, this superb  dramatic programme of song, music and verse celebrates the intriguing family connection of Robert Burns with the county of East Lothian.   As early as last year, this strong historical theme was also present in another of Andrew Dallmeyer’s much acclaimed works, The Battle of Pots ‘n’ Pans which premiered in Prestonpans and also at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

As The Mother of All Burns, Juliet Cadzow of Balamory fame superbly captures the spirit of Agnes Broun as she scales the depths of this character and resurrects those sunken sensations of a distant past.  She skilfully reveals to the audience a most fascinating individual, highly intelligent, albeit sadly illiterate who passed on to Burns the traditional songs and ballads that made her son the much loved and celebrated poet he is today.

As they say, no great story should be without great music and Coreen Scott’s beautiful voice, utterly joyful, fills the grand vaulted ceiling of The Great Hall at Lennoxlove, (the estate which Burns’ brother Gilbert was employed as Factor).  Coreen is a member of the lively folk trio, Laverock which I was lucky enough to see at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2007… and bought the CD too ~ just superb!!

The simple humanity of The Mother of All Burns is a superbly crafted piece of work.  Bob Mitchell & David Murray from The Grants Braes Burns Club are top-notch in their supporting roles which local audiences thoroughly enjoyed.  Hopefully this most refreshing of dramatic works will be seen again and again…

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 7th, 2009 at 2:32 pm and is filed under Topical, Videos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.