Horsecross is kicking off 2009 with playwright and director Gerry Mulgrew's fast and furious adaptation of the classic Robert Burns tale Tam O'Shanter at Perth Theatre.
The only new professional theatre production celebrating Burns in his 250th anniversary year, Mulgrew's Tam O'Shanter is a bawdy musical romp that, as well as retelling the tale of the much loved ‘drunken blellum', explores the relationship between Tam and his long-suffering wife Kate, recreating elements of the world in which Burns was writing during the 1790's.
Material from other Burns works finds its way in to the production, which intertwines Mulgrew's own Scottish verse with that of Burns: The Holy Fair and The Cottar's Saturday Night allow Mulgrew to create scenes satirising religious fundamentalism and to give an insight into 18th Century Scots peasant life. Modern and local references are scattered throughout the often hilarious work, drawing inevitable parallels between today's Scotland and the country of Burns' ken.
Tam O'Shanter features Scottish actors Andy Clark of Blairgowrie who appeared in the Wizard of Oz at the Citizen's Theatre, Glasgow over the seasonal period and Gerda Stevenson whose TV and film credits include Heartbeat, River City and Braveheart.
Mulgrew says:
"I have recited this poem many times at Burns suppers and it's a special delight to be let loose on a dramatisation of it for the stage. The project has served as a catalyst to make me go back to Burns and read as much of him as I can. It has been astonishing to rediscover his passion, his political astuteness, his hilarious and deadly accurate satirising, as well as his wonderful dexterity with language, both Scots and English. I hope I can do him justice in the choral romp I am devising for Perth."
Tam O'Shanter runs at Perth Theatre from Friday 30 January until Saturday 14 February. For tickets, call the Horsecross Box Office on 01738 621 031 or visit www.horsecross.co.uk