Salmond shows US tartanised Scotland

Published on Saturday 28 February 2009 18:47

TENS of millions of Americans last night tuned in to Alex Salmond's latest attempt to sell Scotland's Homecoming campaign and witnessed a tartan extravaganza that would embarrass even the most shameless shortbread tin.

The first US broadcast of Salmond's Homecoming advert, starring Sir Sean Connery and Lulu, was accompanied by a patriotic song and dance show.

American television viewers were treated to misty images of Scotland's castles and mountains as the strains of 'Auld Lang Syne', 'Loch Lomond', a kilted version of the Proclaimers' '500 miles (I'm Gonna Be)' and the actor Brian Cox reciting Burns.

The hour-long epic Highland Heartbeat was shown on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), one of America's largest television networks.

The show was sponsored by VisitScotland and made by Kennedy Productions Company.

But the approach adopted by the film-makers led to suggestions that the Homecoming event is relying too much on outdated "shortbread tin" images of Scotland.

Lord Foulkes, the Labour MSP, said: "I don't think this is the way Alex Salmond should be promoting Scotland. It's kitsch. It's very much like Brigadoon rather than the new dynamic Scotland."

Kenny MacDonald, the manager of the Proclaimers, said: "This is light entertainment with a large amount of cheese."

But Roddy Martine, the Scottish author and socialite who has judged at the Dressed to Kilt exhibition in New York, said: "If the Americans want a misty land of mountains and lochs with monsters in them that's up to them."