After a lifetime of experiencing Burns Supper readings with varying degrees of enthusiasm, even Scottish audiences seem thrilled and amazed by this new, passionate, altogether sexier version of the life story of Scotland’s bard Robert Burns, as embodied by Alan Cumming.
After a hit run at the Edinburgh International Festival this month, the National Theatre of Scotland’s production Burn arrives in Perth for a three-day run which must surely rank as the area’s hottest theatre ticket of the year.
Perthshire, of course, is where Cumming grew up, and there’s a certain connection to Burns’ own upbringing – both men were raised in the country as sons of men who worked the land, Burns’ father as a farmer and Cumming’s as an estate keeper.
Broadly this is a biography, telling of Burns’ upbringing, the concurrent growth of his passions for poetry, good times and a string of female lovers, and his introduction to Scottish high society in Edinburgh, where he became some kind of fusion of an 18th century rock star and a curio for the elites.
The play is co-created and directed by Steven Hoggett, movement director of the NTS hit Black Watch and the West End hit Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, both with director John Tiffany, and is co-choreographed by Hoggett and Vicki Manderson.
The pair infuse it with raw physical energy, as Cumming performs a text drawn from Burns’ writing and letters which is punctuated by both physical gesture and movements which border on a dance piece.
The fusion of Ana Ines Jabares-Pita’s sparse set and Kevin Quantum’s illusion design adds a bit of magic, as lit scraps of paper vanish into the air and chairs sink into the stage at odd angles.
Elsewhere, Burns converses with women embodied by dangling shoes and professes his love for Scotland draped in a Saltire which stretches the length of the stage and then vanishes. By the end, you’ll feel you know him like you never have until now.
- Burn is at Perth Theatre from Thursday 18th to Saturday 20th August. Seen at the King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, during the Edinburgh International Festival. www.horsecross.co.uk
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