The King's Kilt
The King's Kilt
Oran Mor, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
Just like the kilt that eventually spanned George IV's girth, a lot of chequered material has gone into accounts of his historic visit to Scotland in 1822. What is not in doubt, however, is the part Sir Walter Scott played in transforming the uber-portly monarch's appearance into the fore-runner of kitsch tartanalia and souvenir kiltie dolls, and it is this episode that Rona Munro fastens on for a piece of well-plaid whimsy.
American academic Dr Walt Scott (David Mara) has come to Edinburgh, determined to soak up every detail he can about his illustrious ancestor and namesake. He has even booked into a grotty B&B because the landlady has the same name as the one Scott references in his Chronicles Of The Canongate. At which point, we go back ... back in time to when King and kilt were, according to Munro's humour, akin to The Emperor's New Clothes (which is, by the way, Oran Mor's panto, opening next week).
Mara promptly slips into period costume and a douce Scottish accent as Sir Walter, who sees the King's dressing-up as a way of healing old battle wounds, but those wounds - suffered at Culloden - have left lingering scars on the Gaelic-speaking dressmaker Ailsa (Beth Marshall).
Her loyalties, her sense of national identity - as embodied in the proscribed clan tartans - are the serious threads in the predominantly comedic fabric of Munro's writing and Marilyn Imrie's direction, where placating a nebby martinet of a landlady is a source of hilarity and more of an uphill task than uniting a divided land.
Alison Peebles can't help but steal the show as the landladies past and present, whether she is in the grim bonnet of Mistress McEvoy or the smiley ringlets of Mhairi McDougall, raising laughter with just a look.
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