THE LADY AND THE POET

Robert Burns and Mrs Frances Dunlop were friends; their friendship, based on mutual respect, lasted a decade. This play is based on extracts from the many letters that passed between them.

A few years ago, I was handed a dog-eared script with annotations and notes in all its margins. The piece had been put together by James Miller, a former police officer who had made his home in the village of Dunlop, Ayrshire. Fascinated by the connection between Burns and his mentor, Mrs Dunlop of Dunlop House, James had written a play using their letters and some of Burns’s songs. The play had been performed by local people in the village pub in the 1990s.

With permission from James’s family, I adapted the script as an audio drama, focusing on the doomed friendship between Burns and Frances; I dramatized sections of the play, mainly focusing on that other strong woman in his life, Jean Armour, who stuck by him through thick and thin, and who gave birth to their ninth child on the day of Burns’s funeral. We know that Jean had a beautiful voice and would sing the songs that Burns wrote or collected; in the play, the songs are movingly  performed by Rachel Macpherson-Graham, our very own Jean.

With the help of very talented voice actors, I wanted to bring this relatively unknown side of the poet’s life to a wider audience. If you haven’t heard it, do listen. If you have, here’s a Behind the Scenes chat with producer John Boyd and actors Lorenzo Novani and Diane Brooks who helped to bring the story to life.

Find out more about all the creative talents here on the Team page.