Robert Burns

Michael Jackson project based on poems of Robert Burns

Recordings of co-written songs may emerge, says producer David Gest

16 Jan 2012

The Robert Burns' Birthplace Museum is in talks about receiving a copy of songs co-written with Michael Jackson that are based on Burns' poems. Music producer David Gest visited the museum in Ayrshire in December as part of a programme being filmed…

With Burns Night looming, we ask what makes Rabbie relevant today

Author Allan Wilson and academic Gerard Carruthers on Bard's legacy

6 Jan 2012

The Academic: Gerard Caruthers Notoriously, Jeremy Paxman claimed that Robert Burns was a writer of doggerel. The Scottish poet may have written the odd bad line or even bad poem, but, at his best, he was a producer of great poetry and arguably his…

Burns Night 2012: Glasgow and Edinburgh highlights

6 Jan 2012

Edinburgh gets its bard celebrations off to an impressive (and prompt) start with Burnsfest at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in association with Scotland’s Winter Festivals (17–28 Jan, times vary). From a ceilidh in the café to performances of the…

Robert Burns: Not in my Name

Tracing the final years of the Bard

8 Aug 2011

Political activist, prolific blogger and former Rebel Inc proprietor Kevin Williamson traces the last few years of Burns’ life via the poems that were considered too dangerous for the Bard to claim as his own. A blend of multimedia and spoken word…

Robert Burns: Not In My Name reclaims Scottish bard from tourism

Kevin Williamson on Burns' radical poetry to Edinburgh Festival 2011

27 Jul 2011

So, you think you know Robert Burns, eh? Tartan-edged poetry for shortbread tins and corporate haggis suppers? Well, Kevin Williamson, founder of 90s publishing punks Rebel Inc (Children of Albion Rovers) has decided to change your mind. His new…

Robert Burns Birthplace Museum set for Alloway in Ayrshire

£21m building celebrating Scottish poet opens Wed 1 Dec 2010

17 Feb 2011

As part of the Robert Burns Heritage Park trail, a new museum dedicated to the Scottish icon will be opened in Ayr in December. The Robert Burns Birthplace Museum will be opened on 1 December in Alloway, by Burns Cottage, where the poet was born. The…

Robert Burns app features poems, biography and a Burns Supper guide

iPhone app to launch Robert Burns Birthplace Museum opening

21 Jan 2011

The famous and most loved Scots poet has a free iPhone app launched by the Scottish Government which includes his complete works with over 550 poems and love songs. Burns is renowned for being Scotland's greatest cultural icon and is celebrated…

Burns: The Video Diary

Rabbie gets down and dirty in Auld Reekie

25 Aug 2010

Donald Smith’s multimedia dramatisation of Robert Burns’ Edinburgh days is a slick, atmospheric affair. Video sequences and fragments of live delivery combine to provide a shifting, restless picture of the Bard as he arrives in the capital of…

The Lasses, O

Scots narrative by the Scottish Bard’s women

19 Aug 2010

Janet Paisley re-animates a spectre from the hearts and minds of all those who were raised in Scotland or study its literary history, Robert Burns. Through the testimonies of five women close to him (midwife, storyteller, mother-in-law, smuggler and…

Wee Willie Gray

Magical adventure for Burns’ wee boy

14 Aug 2010

Robert Burns wasn’t known for writing children’s verse – and even when he did, he was economical with his words. So Foolish Notion (aka Andy Cannon and Wendy Weatherby) had their work cut out turning his six line song Wee Willie Gray into an hour-long…

Wee Willie Gray brings musical storytelling to the Fringe

Andy Cannon's homage to Scotland's Robert Burns

29 Jul 2010

As his witty homage to Robert Burns, Oor Rabbie and re-working of Tam O’Shanter ably proved, Andy Cannon knows a thing or two about Scotland’s bard. Teaming up once again with musician Wendy Weatherby, Cannon is taking on yet another Burns poem, Wee…

Scottish history and art lesson at Show Scotland 2010

28 Apr 2010

One of the most unfortunately underrated annual events in the country, Show Scotland is unfurling itself out across the May bank holdiay weekend again, and we advise you to sit up and pay attention. Not so much a festival as a nuanced celebration of…

Have meat, can eat

20 Jan 2010

Just when you thought it was safe to crack open your haggis... BURNS IS BACK. Yes, no sooner has the Year of Homecoming been safely consigned to the tartan time capsule than Burns Night 2010 rolls around, with the usual mix of traditional suppers…

Janey Godley

19 Jan 2010

If the Scottish Bard was given the opportunity to chose a female comic from these shores to keep his flame burning, chances are he might have picked Janey Godley. They certainly share a love of the fruity, meaty side of our language, and Burns would…

Breakfast with Burns

Finally, a few words from the lassies in his life

1 Sep 2009

250 years after his birth, more Scottish girls than ever have got the hots for The Bard. Alicia Devine sure does. The triumph of this raucous one-woman show is that as we hear from Burns’ mother, wife, and lovers. And from all the blethers between…

Dub Syndicate

Sci-fi wall wobblers

29 Jul 2009

Anyone who witnessed former Pop Group vocalist Mark Stewart with ex-Sugarhill house band The Maffia play Edinburgh last year with seminal producer and On-U Sound head honcho Adrian Sherwood manning the controls will probably still be wondering where on…

Best of the Rest - Politics

Political highlights at the Edinburgh Festivals

13 Jul 2009

Highlights include Annie Lennox and the SING campaign, From Darwin to Dolly: And Beyond, A Life in Politics: Dennis Canavan, Devolution and the Arts, Young Peoples Question Time, Burns' Radical Voice and Love But Her

Andy Cannon Pays Tribute To Robert Burns

The Wee Stories man recreates the bard's work with a wry smile in child friendly performance

13 Jul 2009

Were he alive today, you get the feeling Robert Burns would like Andy Cannon. In him, the Scottish bard would recognise a fellow storyteller with a love of his nation, and a knack for entertaining the masses with wit and charm. Best known for his work…

Figures of fun

What the Edinburgh Festival means in numbers

13 Jul 2009

1,535,519 tickets, 34,265 performances and nine rubber ducks. All that and more make up a busy August.

Sound Festival

9 Jul 2009

Following its success last year, the sound festival has launched its programme boasting over 60 performances and events. The music fest line-up will include a special celebration of the work by the festival’s patron, James MacMillan to mark his 50th…

Burns Discovery

2 Apr 2009

A rare book which belonged to Robert Burns has been discovered in Alloway. Museum Curator David Hopes and local volunteers were preparing over 2,000 books and 400 artefacts for preservation and restoration treatment when they came across a book which…

Scotland The Great - Homecoming

22 Jan 2009

Four skinny boys stare up at a mountain. The mountain stares back at them. The hairiest one throws his arms out and roars: ‘Does it not make you proud to be Scottish?’; the prettiest one looks up from his vodka bottle, and hurls back bile. It’s been…

Scotland The Great - Robert Crawford: The Bard

22 Jan 2009

‘One of my friends said to me that a new biography of Burns is the least necessary book in the world, but actually quite a lot of the previous biographies aren’t up to scratch, either because they aren’t all that well written or they didn’t have much…

Scotland The Great - Nine Inch Will Please a Lady

22 Jan 2009

The Burnsian band I am in, with Malcolm Ross and my brother Russel, The Bum-Clocks, has a version of ‘Nine Inch’, a witty ditty in celebration of quantity. We usually locate it in our mash-up of the poetry of Burns and Iggy Pop which kicks off with ‘A…

Burns Night

22 Jan 2009

The man of the moment is not, as you might mistakenly be thinking, Barack Obama (guh! We’re so over that inauguration shizzle!), but a 250 year old womanising ploughman from Ayrshire. Here’s our guide to the best ways to mark Burns Night. Why not…