Tish Tindall was as surprised as anyone when she heard David Gest wanted to meet her. It is not that Tindall was new to showbiz – she is the co-owner of Lossie Entertainment Academy Studios, a podcast host and a prolific songwriter. But the Inverurie-born musician and teacher is hardly the type to hang out with someone like Gest, a friend of Michael Jackson, ex-husband of Liza Minnelli and contender on I'm A Celebrity. What could this Hollywood publicist and producer possibly want from her?

The answer, it seems, was authenticity. Gest, who died in 2016, had a passion for Robert Burns and, through a mutual friend, wanted Tindall to help turn the Ayrshire poet's life into a musical. This was a long-standing obsession of his; one he claimed was shared by his childhood friend Michael Jackson who, he said, had used Tam O' Shanter as an inspiration for Thriller.

In the early 1990s, Gest produced a soundtrack album in Jackson's studio for a show called Red Red Rose. With music by Paul Alan Johnson and a book by Edinburgh writer George Rosie, it reimagined the poems of Burns as showtunes as if, in an unlikely twist, the 18th-century farmer's son had ended up on Broadway.

After a try-out for Hollywood backers in 1992, they performed excerpts in a competition for new musicals in Denmark in 1996, with John Barrowman in the lead. The entry came third and, if the critics are to be relied on, was lucky to get that far. The New York Times called it "a spectacularly terrible dollop of pseudo-Scots kitsch".

Tindall is far too diplomatic to use language like that – besides, she seems genuinely impressed by the score and Rosie's script – but her response tells a different story. She threw out all the songs and started from scratch.

"It was something that had a big Hollywood feel," she says. "At that point, in 2014, I felt musical theatre was not that. It was the most phenomenal piece but it was a show of finales. Every song was a finale. It was so produced. It was remarkable, but just not me."

Perhaps surprisingly, Gest did not object. He had approached Tindall for her gifts as a composer, one rooted in the country of Burns; the least he could do was let her follow her instincts. Tindall felt not only was a Broadway-style musical wrong for the time, but that kind of treatment was ill suited to Burns himself.

"It would have to be simple," she says. "I said to David, 'This is not going to work, darling.' The genius is that Robert was like us. He was not big and glitzy. David wanted to bring the story to Scotland and I think when he met me, he met his match. I called him and said, 'David, I think I need to do something else with this,' and he said, 'OK, do what you need.' It was very straightforward."

For her part, Tindall saw the potential in a musical that imagined the poet in a modern-day setting. In her version, Burns becomes a star in the age of social media, when his weaknesses are subjected to as much scrutiny as his strengths. Tempted by the trappings of fame, he is a man who needs to be reminded of his roots. What inspired Tindall to see Burns in this new light was the celebrity world in which Gest operated – one in which he could realistically hope that Gene Kelly and Anthony Perkins would direct the show had they not died.

"According to David, Thriller was based on Tam O' Shanter and if that is the truth, I thought I need to flip that around," she says. "I need to have Burns alive now and for him to base Tam O' Shanter on Thriller because 'Mike' is a pal."

She adds: "I thought, what's happened here is so bizarre. To have a Hollywood producer who knows every single Hollywood person – and Michael Jackson… I've got to use this in the story."

If Gest was obsessed by Burns, Tindall is no less so, although she was no expert when she started. Her musical is a labour of love. She first staged it at Aberdeen's Tivoli Theatre in 2015 when it was called Robert Burns The Musical. She worked on it again for two short runs on the Edinburgh Fringe before extending it into a full-length show. Now, she has scaled it up for three performances at the Edinburgh Playhouse.

With Lossiemouth actor Elijah Aspinall playing Burns, a role he first took on at the age of 13, the show drops the traditional melodies in favour of an original score. "Sometimes you think you are listening to a Burns song – and sometimes it's difficult to know where the difference is," says Tindall who plays the narrator at her piano, while her band give a rock accompaniment. "It is simple and it shoots right to the heart."

Having come to Burns late in life, she is determined the show should be accessible. She is not big on the cultish rituals of Burns suppers. "I've tried to create something that speaks to everybody because I think that's what Robbie Burns does. I hope this show says to people who don't have the 'proper' Scottish celebration in the 'proper' Scottish order that we can do this too and we can do it all year. It's not about being a Burns expert. It's just my interpretation of how it could be to be a genius living now."

Burns, Edinburgh Playhouse, 20–21 January

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