THE LADY & THE POET

The Lady and the Poet is an audio drama about the friendship between the Scottish poet, Robert Burns and his patron, Frances Dunlop.

In 1786, Robert Burns sent a copy of his book, Poems, Chiefly in The Scottish Dialect, to Mrs Frances Wallace Dunlop of Dunlop in Ayrshire. This was the first edition of his work, printed in Kilmarnock. Mrs Dunlop was so taken with it, and with him, that she became his patron and later, his confidant.

But the voices of these two strong and determined characters still resonate across the years through their letters. Their friendship endured for a decade before their differences drove them apart. The Lady and The Poet focuses on this platonic relationship, which was like no other in Burns’s short and eventful life.

The Lady and The Poet is the second play in An Ayrshire Trilogy, three audio dramas which celebrate Ayrshire and its people. The Trilogy is supported by Creative Scotland.

Find out more about the making of this play by listening to Behind the Scenes on the Journal page.

HIGH SPIRITS

What can be the connection between a scotch whisky distillery and the fact that the island’s bees have all left? Can there ever be a happy ending?

High Spirits is an angelic fantasy tale set on a remote Scottish island. The lambs are not being born, the bees have left, apparently forever and spring has not arrived. Everything is out of kilter and only Breagh, it seems, can put it right. High Spirits is about finding friendship and facing fear. “You’re a child of the air. Your job is to cross the barriers that separate the different elements in this world. Your job is telling stories, and bringing back harmony.” High Spirits is part of An Ayrshire Trilogy, three audio dramas which celebrate our rich history and culture. The Trilogy is supported by Creative Scotland.

To find out more about the writing of the play, go to the blogs on the Journal page: The Grain of An Idea and High Spirits where you can also download Gregor Keachie’s inspiring song, Face Fear, written especially for the play.

THERE GOES CRAUFURDLAND

An audio drama combining fact and fiction, which tells the story of two Ayrshire families caught up in the 1745 Jacobite rebellion and its aftermath.

Craufurdland Castle in Fenwick, Ayrshire, keeps its secrets close. It has been held in the same family for almost two thousand years.  It is the early 1800s.  Janet Craufurd, Lady of the house, writes in her diary, charting the progress of renovations to the estate which has suffered years of neglect.

But Janet’s mind is not easy. She suspects that the house has its own story to tell – a story lost in a secret passage, in hidden rooms, in dusty books and neglected papers. And someone is watching her as she searches for answers; someone she cannot see but whose presence she senses as she works.

The story takes us back to the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, when the Earl of Kilmarnock and the Laird of Craufurdland found themselves on opposite sides.

There Goes Craufurdland is the final play in An Ayrshire Trilogy, three audio dramas which celebrate Ayrshire and its people. The Trilogy is supported by Creative Scotland.