Letter: Darien demeaned

Having had the dubious pleasure of seeing Alistair Beaton's play, Caledonia, on Sunday night I can only say I am appalled.

Professor Tom Devine, based on his usual, diligent research, delivered a lecture at the Book Festival last week outlining the case for the pre-Union and pre-Darien enterprise of the Scots.

Mr Beaton, in contrast, has managed to construct a play which totally trivialised a complex and tragic subject to the level of a poorly executed farce masquerading as some sort of satire.

While he did include the fact that King William had significantly contributed to the failure of Scots ambitions, and undoubtedly greed was an important component, the Scots were comprehensively portrayed as stupid, greedy and with ambitions way above their pathetic station.

The final straw was the playing on the exit from the theatre of the Ally's Army World Cup theme, presumably to indicate that the Scots have always had ideas "above their station".

What a sad contrast to the wonderful success of Black Watch and what a waste of the taxpayers' subsidy.

Alex Grant

Great King Street

Edinburgh