130 Years
Scott’s Writing for the Edinburgh Stage
On Thursday 4th April 2019 we had a talk by Gillian Hughes.
She was introduced by our Chairman, Prof Peter Garside.
Gillian Hughes is the author of James Hogg: A Life (2007) and editor or co-editor of several volumes in the Stirling / South Carolina Research Edition of the Collected Works of James Hogg, including Hogg’s letters in three volumes (2004-08). More recently she has edited or co-edited works by Stevenson, Scott, and Lockhart. Walter Scott, The Shorter Poems, ed. P. D. Garside and Gillian Hughes, was published in the Edinburgh Edition of Walter Scott’s Poetry in 2020.
Synopsis: Scott was a theatrical enthusiast and this talk traces his connections with, in particular, the Theatre Royal Edinburgh. Exorcising its past taints of both Jacobitism and Jacobinism Scott worked as a trustee of the theatre to create a national drama that was more than the customary ‘garbage of melo-drama and pantomime’. Friendships with actors such as Sarah Smith and members of the Kemble acting dynasty produced a variety of theatrical addresses for specific occasions. Scott’s earnest promotion of plays with Scottish subject matter by Joanna Baillie and Sir George Steuart Mackenzie, however, was not half so effective in the establishing of a national drama as various theatrical adaptations of the Waverley Novels, particular
Rob Roy.
Download the [Transcript]
Share on social media
