Arts Diary: Duke turns focus on neglected Scott

Published on Wednesday 23 September 2009 20:16

SIR WALTER Scott "made us all", but goes sadly unnoticed in this Year of Homecoming, declares his leading kinsman, the Duke of Buccleuch.

The 10th Duke, chief of Clan Scott, is leading a major contingent of fellow Scotts to see the reincarnation of Sir Walter tonight in a very Scott-ish setting.

"It is terribly important to fly the flag for Walter Scott," the duke says. "He is rather shamefully overlooked, considering the profound influence he had not on just British, but European culture."

The event in question is a performance of The Ragged Lion, the play based on the book by Allan Massie, in which the author's intimate thoughts are revealed in a "lost memoir".

The production, by Rowan Tree Theatre Company and starring Crawford Logan, is on a month-long tour of the south of Scotland (details at www.rowan treetheatrecompany.co.uk).

It kicks off tonight at the Bowhill Theatre, a converted game larder at Bowhill House, near Selkirk, on one of the duke's four Scottish estates, and what was the Scott family base for five centuries.

A contingent of more than 50 Scotts will see the opening performance, some in full clan regalia, ahead of the first ever Scott family gathering this weekend.

Lead by the duke – Richard Walter John Montagu Douglas Scott, to give his full name – they include the chieftain of Clan Scott of the United States, Kelly Scott Davies, and fellow American Ken Scott, a senior prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague.

There have already been grumblings about Scott being virtually ignored in the Year of Homecoming. A major peg for Homecoming was Robert Burns's 250th anniversary, so there was bound to be a focus on Burns, the Duke admits, but he still feels Scott has been overlooked.

"The novels of Sir Walter Scott told a nation and a world what the 'Home' in 'Homecoming' means," the duke says. "He is, with Burns, Scotland's greatest literary figure. He wrote the English language's first best-selling novel, invented Scottish tourism, and made modern Scotland.

"We owe our national symbols the kilt, Scottish banknotes and Scots law to the man. He made us all, yet he is unnoticed today."

Memorable events

THE Merchant City festival kicks off in Glasgow today. The four-day event is hosting 300 performances across 80 venues, with offerings from farmers' markets to extreme unicycling.

The highlight is the Memory Projector, a 40 minute walk-through performance in the basement spaces beneath Merchant Square. The show explores themes of travel and journeys, remembering and forgetting, with "character guides" who take the audience through underground corridors and rooms.

It also includes an array of 15,000 luggage labels, gathered in past projects across the UK and Europe. People will be invited to write a label and add their own memories.

Staged eight times a day – register at Byblos on Albion Street – Memory Projector is produced by Wildworks, a highly-praised Cornish theatre company who specialise in site-specific installations. In the past they have set works in a Maltese fishing village, an abandoned department store in Colchester, and clay pits in Cornwall.

The climax of the production shows films and memories of Glasgow. In the last three weeks the Wildworks team, including artists, sculptors and musicians, have gathered stories, objects and photographs from and filmed interviews with scores of Glaswegians, explains project manager Tom Barnecut.

"They tend to talk about memories of childhood, favourite grandparents, and some specific stuff to Glasgow, ships and shipbuilders, seeing the QE2 being launched, dance halls like Barrowland," he said. They will be "live mixed" as the audience feeds in their own memories.