The Burns Project
★★★★☆ Nuanced
Lyceum (Henry Irving Room): Wed 24 Jun – Sun 5 Jul 2026
Review by Hugh Simpson
The Burns Project, by James Clements (in collaboration with the National Trust for Scotland) at the Lyceum, is an engaging, beautifully performed piece full of both vitality and subtlety.
A long and narrow dining table winds through the middle of the Lyceum’s Henry Irving room, where a small audience can experience Clements and his portrait of Robert Burns based on the poet’s own writings.
Lisa Rigby and James Clements. The Burns Project (image from previous run). Pic Kat Gollock.
There have been countless dramatic version of the Bard, and in recent years the number has just increased. As well as more intimate performances such as this one, there’s even been an attempt to tell his story through interpretative dance, as well as a full-blown musical that was unforgettable (and not in a good way).
The trend has been to focus on Burns’s relationship with women, and so many productions have claimed to tell a ‘new’ and ‘darker’ tale that it sometimes appears that the most radical course of action would actually be to produce a traditionally sentimental, shortbread-tin piece aimed squarely at the tourist market.
Despite the involvement of the National Trust, this is definitely not that piece. Drawing on Burns’s poetry, letters and journals, Clements has fashioned an impressionistic, nuanced and balanced portrait. Clements is backed up by Lisa Rigby, who provides music and vocals as well as participating in the action. (At some performances Rigby’s music will be performed by Ray Aggs).
a humanity, sympathy and solidity
It’s extremely well performed, with the intimacy of the space used to great effect by director Cora Bissett. There’s a humanity, sympathy and solidity to Clements’s portrayal of the poet and of the man that charms and convinces, with the gentle interactions with audience members very effective.
Lisa Rigby. The Burns Project (image from previous run). Pic Kat Gollock.
Rigby’s music, accompanied on guitar, mandolin or shruti box, has a similar immediacy and power.
Burns was a complicated figure, and his legacy is equally full of contradictions. He was an anti-establishment figure who became an excise officer, a left-winger who was perfectly content to consider supervising a plantation, a romantic whose treatment of women causes problems for modern audiences to say the least.
All of these contradictions are put in context, not just by the live performances, but by the use of recorded voices that explore opinions from Burns’s time and from our own. Provided by Robbie Hall, Crawford Logan, Karen Fishwick and Albert Robertson, these voices are thoroughly impressive and illuminating, although sometimes not quite as easy to make out as they might be.
beautifully fitted to the space
Everything else about the technical side of the production, however, is exceptionally impressive. Elle Taylor’s lighting design is beautifully fitted to the space, at one stage making good use of an illuminated fissure in the centre of that snaking table. Jenny Booth’s design is both striking and appropriate to the space, with inventive use made of the table setting.
This is an involving and compelling production that has already toured Scotland and the USA and frankly could run forever. It’s exactly the portrayal of Burns that tourists (and Scots) should see.
Running time: One hour (no interval)
Lyceum Theatre (Henry Irving Room), Grindlay St, EH3 9AX
Wednesday 24 June – Sunday 5 July 2026
Daily (not Mon).
Tue – Fri & Sat 4/Sun 5: 7.30pm. Mats Sat/Sun: 12.30pm (not Sun 5), 3.30pm.
Tickets and details: Book here.
James Clements. The Burns Project (image from previous run). Pic Kat Gollock.
ENDS
